Michael Arata is an American actor and film producer. He began his acting career at age four and has since appeared on stage, in feature films and television programs.

Arata was born in New Orleans, Louisiana

New Orleans, Louisiana

New Orleans is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. The New Orleans metropolitan area has a population of 1,235,650 as of 2009, the 46th largest in the USA. The New Orleans – Metairie – Bogalusa combined statistical area has a population...

. As an actor, he has worked with Academy Award winners Oliver Stone

Oliver Stone

William Oliver Stone is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Stone became well known in the late 1980s and the early 1990s for directing a series of films about the Vietnam War, for which he had previously participated as an infantry soldier. His work frequently focuses on...

, Gene Hackman

Gene Hackman

Eugene Allen "Gene" Hackman is an American actor and novelist.Nominated for five Academy Awards, winning two, Hackman has also won three Golden Globes and two BAFTAs in a career that spanned five decades. He first came to fame in 1967 with his performance as Buck Barrow in Bonnie and Clyde...

, Kevin Costner

Kevin Costner

Kevin Michael Costner is an American actor, singer, musician, producer, director, and businessman. He has been nominated for three BAFTA Awards, won two Academy Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards. Costner's roles include Lt. John J...

, Jamie Foxx

Jamie Foxx

Eric Marlon Bishop , professionally known as Jamie Foxx, is an American actor, singer-songwriter, stand-up comedian, and talk radio host. As an actor, his work in the film Ray earned him the Academy Award and BAFTA Award for Best Actor as well as the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a...

, Tatum O'Neil, Kim Hunter

Kim Hunter

Kim Hunter was an American film, theatre, and television actress. She won both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award, each as Best Supporting Actress, for her performance as Stella Kowalski in the 1951 film A Streetcar Named Desire...

, Billy Bob Thornton

Billy Bob Thornton

Billy Bob Thornton is an American actor, screenwriter, director and musician. Thornton gained early recognition as a cast member on the CBS sitcom Hearts Afire and in several early 1990s films including On Deadly Ground and Tombstone...

, Denzel Washington

Denzel Washington

Denzel Hayes Washington Jr. is an American actor, screenwriter, director, and film producer. He first rose to prominence when he joined the cast of the medical drama, St. Elsewhere, playing Dr...

, Ellen Burstyn

Ellen Burstyn

Ellen Burstyn is a leading American actress of film, stage, and television. Burstyn's career began in theatre during the late 1950s, and over the next ten years she appeared in several films and television series before joining the Actors Studio in 1967...

 and Sissy Spacek

Sissy Spacek

Sissy Spacek is an American actress and singer. She came to international prominence for her for role as Carrie White in Brian De Palma's 1976 horror film Carrie for which she earned her first Academy Award nomination...

, and has appeared on stage with Sir Kenneth Branagh, Ben Kingsley

Ben Kingsley

Sir Ben Kingsley, CBE is a British actor. He has won an Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards in his career. He is known for starring as Mohandas Gandhi in the film Gandhi in 1982, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor...

, and Rosemary Harris

Rosemary Harris

Rosemary Ann Harris is an English actress and a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame. Throughout her career she has been nominated for an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award and has won a Golden Globe, an Emmy, a Tony Award, an Obie, and five Drama Desk Awards.-Early life:Harris was born in...

, as well as Alec Baldwin

Alec Baldwin

Alexander Rae "Alec" Baldwin III is an American actor who has appeared on film, stage, and television.Baldwin first gained recognition through television for his work in the soap opera Knots Landing in the role of Joshua Rush. He was a cast member for two seasons before his character was killed off...

 and Elizabeth Ashley

Elizabeth Ashley

Elizabeth Ashley is an American actress who first came to prominence as the ingenue in the Broadway play Take Her, She's Mine, which earned her a Tony Award as Best Featured Actress in a Play.-Early life:...

 in Tennessee Williams

Tennessee Williams

Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...

's classic The Night of the Iguana

The Night of the Iguana

The Night of the Iguana is a stageplay written by American author Tennessee Williams, based on his 1948 short story. The play premiered on Broadway in 1961. Two film adaptations have been made, including the Academy Award-winning 1964 film of the same name....

.

In addition to his film history, Mr. Arata has extensive theatre experience, including acting and producing the works of Tennessee Williams

Tennessee Williams

Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...

, Caryl Churchill

Caryl Churchill

Caryl Churchill is an English dramatist known for her use of non-naturalistic techniques and feminist themes, the abuses of power, and sexual politics. She is acknowledged as a major playwright in the English language and a leading female writer...

, Tony Kushner

Tony Kushner

Anthony Robert "Tony" Kushner is an American playwright and screenwriter. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1993 for his play, Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, and co-authored with Eric Roth the screenplay for the 2005 film, Munich.-Life and career:Kushner was born...

, and William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

. In 1997, American Theatre Magazine hailed Mr. Arata's performance of Stanley Kowalski in the 50th anniversary production of Tennessee Williams' classic A Streetcar Named Desire

A Streetcar Named Desire (play)

A Streetcar Named Desire is a 1947 play written by American playwright Tennessee Williams for which he received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1948. The play opened on Broadway on December 3, 1947, and closed on December 17, 1949, in the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. The Broadway production was...

 as "unhinged and electrifying", and reviewer Dalt Wonk called the performance "a Stanley for our times".

Prior to Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...

, Mr. Arata produced Shakespeare in City Park in New Orleans, the city's only outdoor theatre, as well as several productions in conjunction with the Tennessee Williams Literary Festival.

Movie producing

In 1989, Michael Arata began producing films, starting with his first short film "Looking For Someone". The film won the Grand Jury Award for Best Narrative Short at the Utah Short Film Festival. Since then, Michael has produced documentaries ("The People's Story" on the devastation caused by Hurricane Mitch

Hurricane Mitch

Hurricane Mitch was the most powerful hurricane and the most destructive of the 1998 Atlantic hurricane season, with maximum sustained winds of 180 mph . The storm was the thirteenth tropical storm, ninth hurricane, and third major hurricane of the season. Along with Hurricane Georges, Mitch...

 in Central America winner of the Houston International Film Festival and Telluride Independent Film Festival; Shaolm Y'all, discussing southern Jewish culture, winner of The Sidewalk Moving Pictures Festival), and more recently several feature films, including "Deal", starring Burt Reynolds

Burt Reynolds

Burton Leon "Burt" Reynolds, Jr. is an American actor. Some of his memorable roles include Bo 'Bandit' Darville in Smokey and the Bandit, Lewis Medlock in Deliverance, Bobby "Gator" McCluskey in White Lightning and sequel Gator, Paul Crewe and Coach Nate Scarborough in The Longest Yard and its...

, "The Shooting Gallery", starring Freddie Prinze Jr. and Ving Rhames

Ving Rhames

Irving Rameses "Ving" Rhames is an American actor best known for his work in Bringing Out the Dead, Pulp Fiction, Baby Boy, Don King: Only in America, and the Mission: Impossible film series.-Early life and education:...

, "Home Front

Home front

Home front is the informal term commonly used to describe the civilian populace of the nation at war as an active support system of their military....

" starring Academy Award winner Tatum O'Neal

Tatum O'Neal

Tatum Beatrice O'Neal is an American actress best known for her film work as a child actress in the 1970s. She is the youngest to win a competitive Academy Award, at the age of 10, which she won for her performance as Addie Loggins in Paper Moon opposite her father Ryan O'Neal...

, and "New Orleans Mon Amour", starring Christopher Eccleston

Christopher Eccleston

Christopher Eccleston is an English stage, film and television actor. His films include Let Him Have It, Shallow Grave, Elizabeth, 28 Days Later, Gone in 60 Seconds, The Others, and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra...

. In 2006, following the devastation in New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, Mr. Arata produced the first independent feature film ("Deal") in the city, and thereafter produced "New Orleans Mon Amour" (written and directed by Michael Almereyda

Michael Almereyda

Michael Almereyda is an American film director, screenwriter, and film producer. His most well known work is Hamlet , starring Ethan Hawke.-Early life:...

), "Pool Boy" and "Autopsy" (with fellow producer Warren Zide). He recently produced the remake of the horror classic Night of the Demons, and served as Executive Producer of National Lampoon's "Dirty Movie" and "The Legend of Awesomest Maximus". He got his producing start in theatre, and had a successful run as chairman of Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carre

Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carre

Le Petit Theatre Du Vieux Carre is a community theater in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana.Le Petit was founded in 1916, when a group of amateur theatre-lovers began putting on plays in the drawing room of one of the members....

, the oldest operating theatre in North America, which he returned to relevance and profitability in his three year tenure.

Hurricane Katrina

Michael Arata lives and works in New Orleans. Following Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...

 he was appointed chairman of the Bring Back New Orleans Commission Film/Entertainment subcommittee, and drafted the City of New Orleans' request for federal assistance related to the area's film and entertainment industry.
In 2002, he help draft the successful Louisiana Motion Picture Incentive Act, and was asked by Governor Murphy J. Foster, Jr.

Murphy J. Foster, Jr.

Murphy James "Mike" Foster, Jr. served as 53rd Governor of Louisiana from January 1996 until January 2004. Foster's father was Murphy J. Foster, Jr., but Mike Foster uses "Jr." even though he is technically Murphy J. Foster, III. Foster is a businessman, landowner, and sportsman in St...

 to testify before the Louisiana House and Senate in support of the legislation.

Law degree

He holds a law degree from Tulane University

Tulane University

Tulane University is a private, nonsectarian research university located in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States...

, and regularly conducts seminars on entertainment law at Loyola University

Loyola University New Orleans

Loyola University New Orleans is a private, co-educational and Jesuit university located in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. Originally established as Loyola College in 1904, the institution was chartered as a university in 1912. It bears the name of the Jesuit patron, Saint Ignatius of Loyola...

 and Tulane University

Tulane University

Tulane University is a private, nonsectarian research university located in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States...

 in New Orleans, as well as continuing legal education seminars for practicing lawyers.

Theatre

He was the youngest chairman of the Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carre

Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carre

Le Petit Theatre Du Vieux Carre is a community theater in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana.Le Petit was founded in 1916, when a group of amateur theatre-lovers began putting on plays in the drawing room of one of the members....

, the nations oldest and longest running community theatre.

He formed Art A La Carte, Louisiana's only theatre for the disabled, and one of the nation's only fully accessible creative arts programs.

External links