by Coming up on the second anniversary of the death of comedy writer Harris Wittels, his high school alma mater in Houston has recruited actor Adam Scott and Earwolf founders Scott Aukerman and Jeff Ullrich to attend a fund-raising luncheon in his honor.
Other distinguished alumni of HSPVA include producer Shonda Rhimes, actress Mireille Enos and musician and MacArthur fellow Jason Moran.
Wittels graduated from HSPVA in 2002.
He was a writer and executive producer on NBC’s Parks and Recreation (co-starring Scott), and appeared on several Earwolf podcasts with both Scott and Aukerman, including Comedy Bang! Bang! and Analyze Phish, the latter of which Wittels tried to convince Aukerman in each episode about the genius of the band Phish. Wittels received two posthumous Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Comedy Series for Parks and Recreation (2015) and Master of None (2016). He also wrote for The Sarah Silverman Project, Secret Girlfriend, and Eastbound and Down. And he coined the term “humblebrag,” writing a book about it, Humblebrag: The Art of False Modesty, in 2012.
Wittels died Feb. 19, 2015. He was 30.
You can buy tickets to the HSPVA luncheon here.
You also can make a donation to The Harris Wittels Fund, which awards “scholarships to graduating seniors of his alma mater, The High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Houston, TX, who are pursuing a career in film, TV, or comedy and go toward other initiatives to inspire young artists to work tirelessly on their craft.”
