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Michael Mayer (director)
Encyclopedia
Michael Mayer is an American
stage and film director
. He won the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical
in 2007 for directing Spring Awakening.
to Jerry and Louise Mayer. After graduating from Charles W. Woodward High School
, he studied acting at New York University
, where he earned an MFA in Theater in 1983. He began performing onstage in New York City
but by 1990 had turned his efforts to directing, working as a freelancer
while also teaching at NYU, the Lincoln Center Theatre Institute, and the Juilliard School
.
for his direction of the musical
adaptation of Spring Awakening (2006), which also took the award for Best Musical. He was nominated for the 2002 Tony for his direction of Thoroughly Modern Millie
, which he then directed on London
's West End
. Mayer also won the Drama Desk Award
for Outstanding Director of a Musical for both Spring Awakening and Thoroughly Modern Millie.
Other Broadway
credits include The Lion in Winter
(1999), the 1999 revival of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown
, Side Man
(1998; Drama Desk Award), the 1998 Tony Award-winning revival of Arthur Miller
's A View from the Bridge
starring Anthony LaPaglia
and Brittany Murphy
, for which he was nominated for a Tony and won the Drama Desk Award, and Triumph of Love
, the musical starring Betty Buckley
, Susan Egan
and F. Murray Abraham, with music by Jeffrey Stock and lyrics by Susan Bikenhead. He is also currently working on American Idiot
the musical, based on Green Day's 2004 album American Idiot
.
directing credits include The Credeaux Canvas, John C. Russell's Stupid Kids
, Peter Hedges
' Baby Anger, Theresa Rebeck
's View of the Dome, and the New York premiere of Janusz Glowacki
's Antigone in New York.
, starring Colin Farrell
and Robin Wright Penn, in 2004. He went on to make the family film Flicka
(2006), an adaptation of the story My Friend Flicka
, which became a hit in DVD market. In the same year, he directed a sleeper titled Graduation, which is currently a hit with Netflix's instant programming audience. (IMDb has this film's direction attributed to a different Michael Mayer.) He has also been confirmed to be directing the film adaptation of Green Day's American Idiot.
's 2004 album American Idiot, also titled American Idiot
which premiered at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre
, on September 4, 2009, and ran through November 15, 2009. The show officially opened on April 20, 2010 on Broadway to positive reviews, and closed on April 24, 2011.
Off-Broadway
National tour
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
stage and film director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
. He won the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical
Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical
This is a list of winners and nominations for the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical. Prior to 1960, category for direction included plays and musicals.-1950s:Note: this category was for both dramatic and musical productions...
in 2007 for directing Spring Awakening.
Biography
Mayer was born in Bethesda, MarylandBethesda, Maryland
Bethesda is a census designated place in southern Montgomery County, Maryland, United States, just northwest of Washington, D.C. It takes its name from a local church, the Bethesda Meeting House , which in turn took its name from Jerusalem's Pool of Bethesda...
to Jerry and Louise Mayer. After graduating from Charles W. Woodward High School
Charles W. Woodward High School
Charles W. Woodward High School in Rockville, Maryland opened in 1966. Two decades later in 1987 the high school merged into Walter Johnson High School. Today, the building is occupied by Tilden Middle School.The school was named after Judge Charles W...
, he studied acting at New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
, where he earned an MFA in Theater in 1983. He began performing onstage in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
but by 1990 had turned his efforts to directing, working as a freelancer
Freelancer
A freelancer, freelance worker, or freelance is somebody who is self-employed and is not committed to a particular employer long term. These workers are often represented by a company or an agency that resells their labor and that of others to its clients with or without project management and...
while also teaching at NYU, the Lincoln Center Theatre Institute, and the Juilliard School
Juilliard School
The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...
.
Broadway
In 2007, Mayer won his first Tony Award61st Tony Awards
The 61st Annual Tony Awards were held on June 10, 2007 at Radio City Music Hall, with CBS television broadcasting the ceremony live. As at the 2006 Tony awards, there was no host and the show was emceed by the presenters...
for his direction of the musical
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
adaptation of Spring Awakening (2006), which also took the award for Best Musical. He was nominated for the 2002 Tony for his direction of Thoroughly Modern Millie
Thoroughly Modern Millie (musical)
Thoroughly Modern Millie is a musical with music by Jeanine Tesori, lyrics by Dick Scanlan, and a book by Richard Morris and Scanlan. Based on the 1967 film of the same name, Thoroughly Modern Millie tells the story of a small-town girl, Millie Dillmount, who comes to New York City to marry for...
, which he then directed on London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
's West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
. Mayer also won the Drama Desk Award
Drama Desk Award
The Drama Desk Awards, which are given annually in a number of categories, are the only major New York theater honors for which productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway compete against each other in the same category...
for Outstanding Director of a Musical for both Spring Awakening and Thoroughly Modern Millie.
Other Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
credits include The Lion in Winter
The Lion in Winter
-Synopsis:Set during Christmas 1183 at Henry II of England's château in Chinon, Anjou, Angevin Empire, the play opens with the arrival of Henry's wife Eleanor of Aquitaine, whom he has had imprisoned since 1173...
(1999), the 1999 revival of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown
You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown
You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown is a 1967 musical comedy with music and lyrics by Clark Gesner, based on the characters created by cartoonist Charles M. Schulz in his comic strip Peanuts...
, Side Man
Side Man
Side Man is a memory play by Warren Leight. His inspiration was his father Donald, who worked as a sideman, in jazz parlance a musician for hire who can blend in with the band or star as a solo performer, according to what is required by the gig.-Plot:...
(1998; Drama Desk Award), the 1998 Tony Award-winning revival of Arthur Miller
Arthur Miller
Arthur Asher Miller was an American playwright and essayist. He was a prominent figure in American theatre, writing dramas that include plays such as All My Sons , Death of a Salesman , The Crucible , and A View from the Bridge .Miller was often in the public eye,...
's A View from the Bridge
A View from the Bridge
A View from the Bridge is a play by American playwright Arthur Miller that was first staged on September 29, 1955 as a one-act verse drama with A Memory of Two Mondays at the Coronet Theatre on Broadway. The play was unsuccessful and Miller subsequently revised the play to contain two acts; this...
starring Anthony LaPaglia
Anthony LaPaglia
Anthony M. LaPaglia is an Australian actor. He is known for his role as FBI agent Jack Malone on the American TV series Without a Trace, for which he won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Drama and was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama...
and Brittany Murphy
Brittany Murphy
Brittany Anne Murphy-Monjack , known professionally as Brittany Murphy, was an American actress and singer. She starred in films such as Clueless, Just Married, Girl Interrupted, Spun, 8 Mile, Uptown Girls, Sin City, Happy Feet, and Riding in Cars with Boys...
, for which he was nominated for a Tony and won the Drama Desk Award, and Triumph of Love
Triumph of Love
Triumph of Love is a musical with a book by James Magruder, lyrics by Susan Birkenhead, and music by Jeffrey Stock.Resembling a chamber musical more than a traditional book musical, it is based on the 1732 Pierre de Marivaux commedia dell'arte play Le Triomphe de l'Amour and centers on Spartan...
, the musical starring Betty Buckley
Betty Buckley
Betty Lynn Buckley is an American theater, film and television actress and singer. She is a Tony Award winner and Grammy Award nominee.-Early life:...
, Susan Egan
Susan Egan
Susan Egan is an American actress and singer known for her work on the Broadway stage.-Early life and career:Egan was born in Seal Beach, California. She attended Orange County High School of the Arts and UCLA. In the meantime she started her career touring with the performance group The Young...
and F. Murray Abraham, with music by Jeffrey Stock and lyrics by Susan Bikenhead. He is also currently working on American Idiot
American Idiot (musical)
American Idiot is a one-act, through-sung stage musical. The show is an adaptation of punk rock band Green Day's concept album of the same name. Additional Green Day songs were interpolated from other sources, including 21st Century Breakdown, American Idiot b-sides, and an unreleased song called...
the musical, based on Green Day's 2004 album American Idiot
American Idiot
American Idiot is the seventh studio album by the American punk rock band Green Day. It was released on September 21, 2004 through Reprise Records and was produced by longtime collaborator Rob Cavallo. In mid-2003, the band began recording songs for an album entitled Cigarettes and Valentines...
.
Off-Broadway
Mayer's off-BroadwayOff-Broadway
Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...
directing credits include The Credeaux Canvas, John C. Russell's Stupid Kids
Stupid Kids
Stupid Kids is a play by John C. Russell, first published by Dramatists Play Service, Inc. of New York, and first performed in 1991. Very similar in tone, plot, and characters to the film Rebel Without a Cause, the play follows four students at Joe McCarthy High.Subsequent to its New York run, it...
, Peter Hedges
Peter Hedges
Peter Hedges is an American novelist, screenwriter, and film director.Hedges grew up in West Des Moines, Iowa, and attended Valley High School, where he was involved in the theater department, including the improv group and the mime troupe, "The Bakers Dozen". He later went to the North Carolina...
' Baby Anger, Theresa Rebeck
Theresa Rebeck
Theresa Rebeck is an American playwright, television writer and novelist. Her work has appeared on the Broadway and Off-Broadway stage, in film, and on television. Among her awards are the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Award.-Biography:...
's View of the Dome, and the New York premiere of Janusz Glowacki
Janusz Glowacki
Janusz Głowacki is a Polish-American author and screenwriter.Głowacki wrote the screenplay for Andrzej Wajda's Polowanie na muchy and co-wrote the screenplay of the popular Polish movie Rejs , released in 1970.He emigrated in 1981 to New York City in the wake of the imposition of...
's Antigone in New York.
Film
After directing on- and off-Broadway for more than 15 years, Mayer made his feature film directorial debut with A Home at the End of the WorldA Home at the End of the World (film)
A Home at the End of the World is a 2004 drama film directed by Michael Mayer. The screenplay by Michael Cunningham was adapted from his 1990 novel of the same title.-Plot synopsis:...
, starring Colin Farrell
Colin Farrell
Colin James Farrell is an Irish actor, who has appeared in such film as Tigerland, Miami Vice, Minority Report, Phone Booth, The Recruit, Alexander and S.W.A.T....
and Robin Wright Penn, in 2004. He went on to make the family film Flicka
Flicka
-Chart performance:...
(2006), an adaptation of the story My Friend Flicka
My Friend Flicka
My Friend Flicka is a 1941 novel by Mary O'Hara, about Ken McLaughlin, the son of a Wyoming rancher, and his horse Flicka. It was the first in a trilogy, followed by Thunderhead and Green Grass of Wyoming . The popular 1943 film version featured a young Roddy McDowall...
, which became a hit in DVD market. In the same year, he directed a sleeper titled Graduation, which is currently a hit with Netflix's instant programming audience. (IMDb has this film's direction attributed to a different Michael Mayer.) He has also been confirmed to be directing the film adaptation of Green Day's American Idiot.
Other work
He directed and co-wrote the stage adaptation of Green DayGreen Day
Green Day is an American punk rock band formed in 1987. The band consists of lead vocalist and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist and backing vocalist Mike Dirnt, and drummer Tre Cool...
's 2004 album American Idiot, also titled American Idiot
American Idiot (musical)
American Idiot is a one-act, through-sung stage musical. The show is an adaptation of punk rock band Green Day's concept album of the same name. Additional Green Day songs were interpolated from other sources, including 21st Century Breakdown, American Idiot b-sides, and an unreleased song called...
which premiered at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre
Berkeley Repertory Theatre
Berkeley Repertory Theatre is a regional theater company located in Berkeley, California. It was founded in 1968, as the East Bay’s first resident professional theatre. Michael Leibert was the founding artistic director, who was then succeeded by Sharon Ott in 1984. The company runs seven...
, on September 4, 2009, and ran through November 15, 2009. The show officially opened on April 20, 2010 on Broadway to positive reviews, and closed on April 24, 2011.
Stage productions
Broadway- American IdiotAmerican Idiot (musical)American Idiot is a one-act, through-sung stage musical. The show is an adaptation of punk rock band Green Day's concept album of the same name. Additional Green Day songs were interpolated from other sources, including 21st Century Breakdown, American Idiot b-sides, and an unreleased song called...
(2010) - Spring AwakeningSpring AwakeningSpring Awakening is a rock musical adaptation of the controversial 1892 German play of the same title by Frank Wedekind. It features music by Duncan Sheik and a book and lyrics by Steven Sater. Set in late-19th century Germany, it concerns teenagers who are discovering the inner and outer tumult of...
(2006) - Thoroughly Modern MillieThoroughly Modern Millie (musical)Thoroughly Modern Millie is a musical with music by Jeanine Tesori, lyrics by Dick Scanlan, and a book by Richard Morris and Scanlan. Based on the 1967 film of the same name, Thoroughly Modern Millie tells the story of a small-town girl, Millie Dillmount, who comes to New York City to marry for...
(2002) - 'night, Mother'night, Mother'Night, Mother is a 1983 play by Marsha Norman about a daughter, Jessie, and her mother, Thelma . The play opens with Jessie calmly telling Mama that by morning she will be dead, as she plans to commit suicide that very evening...
(2004) - After the FallAfter the Fall (play)After the Fall is a play by American dramatist Arthur Miller. The original performance opened in New York City on January 23, 1964, directed by Elia Kazan and starring Barbara Loden and Jason Robards Jr., with an early appearance by Faye Dunaway. Kazan also collaborated with Miller on the script...
(2004) - An Almost Holy Picture (2002)
- Uncle VanyaUncle VanyaUncle Vanya is a play by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. It was first published in 1897 and received its Moscow première in 1899 in a production by the Moscow Art Theatre, under the direction of Konstantin Stanislavski....
(2000) - You're A Good Man, Charlie BrownYou're a Good Man, Charlie BrownYou're a Good Man, Charlie Brown is a 1967 musical comedy with music and lyrics by Clark Gesner, based on the characters created by cartoonist Charles M. Schulz in his comic strip Peanuts...
(1999) - Triumph of LoveTriumph of LoveTriumph of Love is a musical with a book by James Magruder, lyrics by Susan Birkenhead, and music by Jeffrey Stock.Resembling a chamber musical more than a traditional book musical, it is based on the 1732 Pierre de Marivaux commedia dell'arte play Le Triomphe de l'Amour and centers on Spartan...
(1997)
Off-Broadway
- Everyday RaptureEveryday RaptureEveryday Rapture is a musical with a book written by Sherie Rene Scott and Dick Scanlan and music by various composers. It ran Off-Broadway in 2009 and opened on Broadway in 2010...
(2009) - Our House
- 10 Million Miles
- Spring Awakening
- Missing Persons
- America Dreaming
- Hundreds of Hats
National tour
- Angels in AmericaAngels in AmericaAngels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes is the 1993 Pulitzer Prize winning play in two parts by American playwright Tony Kushner. It has been made into both a television miniseries and an opera by Peter Eötvös.-Characters:...
(1994)
External links
- Steven Drukman. "A Two-Career Man: Theater Director And Jewish Mother," The New York Times, January 3, 1999. Retrieved July 2, 2007.
- announcement for 10 Million Miles
- Mayer milestones
- Interview with Mayer about Spring Awakening