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Education

BFA in Acting from the University of Southern California, MFA in Creative Writing from Boston University, Ph.D. in Theatre Studies from the CUNY Graduate Center

Biography

Pound of Flesh, his most recent stage play, received its world premiere at the Berkshire Theatre Festival. His plays Attic People, Hats Canes Trunks Trains, West of Canaan, Shaman in the House, and Ex Machina, have been seen in productions, workshops and readings throughout the country. In 1994, Michael was awarded a Playwriting Fellowship from the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre where he spent a year in-residence, working closely with 1992 Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott as Playwright, Director and Dramaturg. His articles, interviews and criticism have appeared in the scholarly journal Slavic and East European Performance, and his poetry and prose were featured in the E.E. Cummings Pre-Centennial Tribute.  Michael has directed numerous plays in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, and Washington D.C., including works by Shakespeare, Chekhov, Beckett, Sartre, and Shepard. As an actor, he has been seen on stage as Trigorin in The Seagull (directed by Anna Deavere Smith), Nelson in Sunshine (directed by Joe Brancato), and in a variety of roles in such plays as The Country Wife, The Taming of the Shrew, Under Milkwood, The Imaginary Invalid, The Cherry Orchard, and True West, to name just a few. His television credits include featured roles in “Law and Order,” “Law and Order: SVU,” “Strong Medicine,” “Swift Justice,” and Sidney Lumet’s “100 Centre Street.” Among his film credits are featured roles in Woody Allen’s “Sweet and Lowdown,” “Bleach” (1998 Sundance Film Festival) and “Bury the Evidence” (Grand Jury Prize Winner- 1999 MicroCineFest, Baltimore).  Michael has also taught Fiction, Poetry and Playwriting at Boston University, English at City College of New York, Theatre History and Acting at both Brooklyn and Hunter Colleges in New York City, and various seminars and workshops as Guest Artist at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. He currently teaches Ancient Greek Theatre and Introduction to Theatre Studies at N.Y.U.’s Tisch School of the Arts. His dissertation, Sacred Play: Parable, Myth, Morality, is a literary analysis of the plays and libretti of the English poet W.H. Auden.