Bright started his professional career under the tutelage of his father, Jackie Bright. After graduation, he worked in New York with Joseph Cates, where he produced specials for
George Burns,
Johnny Cash,
David Copperfield, and
Dolly Parton. After moving to Los Angeles in 1982, he started work in comedy programming such as
The History of White People in America and comedy specials starring
Robin Williams,
Martin Mull,
Harry Shearer,
Paul Shaffer, and
Merrill Markoe. In 1993, Bright entered a partnership with
Marta Kauffman and
David Crane to form Bright/Kauffman/Crane Productions and began a development deal with
Warner Bros. Television to produce the comedy series
Friends. He also directed 60 episodes of the series, including the series finale. After
Friends, he went on to executive-produce the spin-off series
Joey with
Friends producers
Shana Goldberg-Meehan and
Scott Silveri.
Joey starred
Friends actor
Matt LeBlanc as the title character and featured
Jennifer Coolidge, also an
Emerson College attendee.
Joey was cancelled on May 15, 2006, during its second season after a major ratings slump. After
Joey, Bright moved back to
Boston where he began working at his alma mater, Emerson College. Over the last four years at Emerson, he executive produced three-sketch comedy shows,
Zebro: A Laugh Show and
Chocolate Cake City, four original half-hour situation comedies,
Browne At Midnight,
Saturdays,
Ground Floor, and
Record Cellar, and a live multi-cam stand-up comedy special,
Die Laughing. He also serves as an advisor to The EVVY Awards. Bright then went on to teach a series of television production classes in the Visual Media Arts department, and helped develop the program for Emerson's new LA Center, which opened in 2013. Kevin ran a diversity workshop for high school students through Emerson College, and worked with
Perkins School for the Blind in
Watertown, Massachusetts, to develop a method of teaching television production to the blind. Bright moved back to Los Angeles in 2013, when he was appointed as Founding Director of the Emerson Los Angeles program. There, he has focused on building new programs that take full advantage of the opportunities Emerson's expanded presence in Los Angeles provides. He directed a documentary in 2007 with
Linda Feferman called
Who Ordered Tax? about his father, Jackie, who was an actor and vaudevillian performer. In 2016, Bright served as the executive producer of the documentary
Best and Most Beautiful Things about Michelle Smith, a woman from
Bangor, Maine who is both legally blind and autistic. Bright also directed on
CBS comedy
Man with a Plan in 2019 for one episode, reuniting with
Friends alum
Matt LeBlanc. In 2024, Bright served as an executive producer of the documentary
My Own Normal about
Alexander Freeman, a filmmaker from
Newton, Massachusetts who has
cerebral palsy, following his journey of becoming a partner and father and confronting the pain of his parents' reaction. The documentary world premiered at
Independent Film Festival Boston. ==Personal life==