Prashanth Venkataramanujam is an American television writer, actor and producer. Until August 2020, he was the head writer and executive producer for the
Netflix series ''
Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj''.
Early life
Venkataramanujam was born on March 12, 1987 in
Downers Grove, Illinois to
Tamil immigrant parents from India.
His father, Perialwar, left his job at the
Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board and immigrated to the United States in the late 1970s; he began working as a structural engineer. In 1981, he met and married Usharani. Venkataramanujam has one sister, Preethi.
Venkataramanujam grew up in
Darien, Illinois. He attended the
University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where he joined the
Chai Town
Chai Town is an all-male, South Asian a cappella group based at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Formed in 2001, Chai Town is an acapella group and specializes in mixing South Asian and Western world, Western music songs together in u ...
a capella group and appeared as Jacob Winter on the TV series ''
One Fine Day!''. He graduated from the school in 2009 with a B.S. in
molecular
A molecule is a group of two or more atoms held together by attractive forces known as chemical bonds; depending on context, the term may or may not include ions which satisfy this criterion. In quantum physics, organic chemistry, and bioche ...
and
cellular biology.
Early career
After graduating, Venkataramanujam worked as a Technology Consultant in Chicago, where he learned many useless skills. He later moved to Los Angeles and began performing standup comedy. While performing at clubs, he met fellow comedian
Hasan Minhaj.
[ In 2012, he was a semi-finalist at the ]San Francisco Comedy Competition
The San Francisco Comedy Competition (sometimes referred to as the San Francisco International Comedy Competition or The San Francisco International Stand-Up Comedy Competition) is a stand-up comedy contest held each September in San Francisco, C ...
. His first break came in 2016 when he wrote Minhaj's speech for the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association The Radio and Television Correspondents' Association of Washington, D.C. (RTCA) is an American broadcast journalism group of news reporters from around the world who cover the United States Congress.[C-SPAN
Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN ) is an American cable and satellite television network that was created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a nonprofit public service. It televises many proceedings of the United States ...]
and went viral, helping to bring both Minhaj and Venkataramanujam to wider attention. In 2017, he was hired to write for '' Bill Nye Saves the World'' and was nominated for a . The same year, he wrote Minhaj's speech for the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. He served as an associate producer for the '' Hasan Minhaj: Homecoming King'' special, released on Netflix in May 2017.
''Patriot Act''
In 2018, Minhaj decided to do a new one-man show built around politics and visual media. Venkataramanujam suggested that the format would work better as an episodic television series. Venkataramanujam and Minhaj then co-created the late-night television show ''Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj''. Venkataramanujam serves as both the series' head writer and executive producer.
Awards and honors
*2017 Nomination – Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for Nonfiction Programming
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Venkataramanujam, Prashanth
Tamil Brahmins
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni
American television writers
Television producers from Illinois
American male television actors
American people of Indian Tamil descent
People from Darien, Illinois
1987 births
Living people