Mike Daisey
Encyclopedia
Mike Daisey is an American
monologist
, author
, and actor
best known for his full-length extemporaneous monologues. His breakthrough work 21 Dog Years is an account of life as an Amazon.com
employee during the dot-com boom
. Since that time he has created monologues about Nikola Tesla
, L. Ron Hubbard
, the Department of Homeland Security, the history of the New York transit system, 9/11, the inventor of the neutron bomb, Wal-Mart
and a variety of other topics, weaving together events from his own life with historical facts. Paper Magazine described him thusly: "...his skill is that he is able to talk about the historical and make it human, the personal and make it universal, so that the listener is both informed and transformed." He is married to his director and collaborator, Jean-Michele Gregory. Currently, they reside in New York City
.
Daisey presented his monumental 24-hour monologue at Portland's TBA Festival
in September 2011. Emphasizing themes of loss, transformation, and the desire for authenticity, Daisey weaves together stories from his life with fictional, Jungian elements. His wife, a dead high school friend, Warren Zevon
, Philip K. Dick
, David Bowie
, and The Walt Disney Company
all feature prominently.
Daisey's next monologue, which came to Portland's TBA Festival
in September 2010, Berkeley Repertory Theatre in January 2011, and played in Seattle in April–May 2011, examined globalization
by exploring the exploitation of Chinese workers through the lens of "the rise and fall and rise of Apple
, industrial design
, and the human price we are willing to pay for our technology, woven together in a complex narrative."
A piece "about ghost stories and why we tell them." It played the IRT Theatre in downtown New York City the week of Halloween 2010.
Daisey's rarely performed piece on his 2008 visit to Tajikistan
with the United States State Department. It was most recently performed at the Yukon Arts Centre
and in Banff in September 2009.
Daisey tells of a trip to the remote Pacific island of Tanna in which inhabitants are members of a cargo cult
based around abandoned World War II bases. Stories of belief and trust from this “cargo cult” are woven against questions about the international financial crisis.
A series of one-night-only performances similar to "All Stories are Fiction." Each performance "explores trivial elements of our modern world, in the belief that the things we honestly think about most of the time deserve time in the spotlight." All performances will be held at Joe's Pub
. The three topics were Facebook
, bacon
, and the boardwalk
.
Daisey tackles a story at the heart of our world today: the surprising, secret history of the Department of Homeland Security. This is woven together with the untold story of the father of the neutron bomb and a pilgrimage to the Trinity blast site, where atomic fire rewrote history a half a century ago. It was performed in Santa Fe, Washington DC, Portland, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
before running in the Public Theater's 2008/2009 season in New York City. A feature film
recording of the work by Steve Anderson was filmed yet remains unreleased.
Daisey explores the rise and fall of the American regional theater system, the death of the repertory companies and the declining power of an art form to matter by implicating himself and the American theater as a whole. This controversial monologue has appeared at the Under The Radar festival, the Capitol Hill Arts Center in Seattle, the Public Theater, and the Barrow Street Theatre in New York City.
A two-headed tale of love and loss, in which Daisey juxtaposes the tragedy of a young couple undergoing an unwanted pregnancy with the unlikely story of raising a puppy to adulthood. It has appeared at American Repertory Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Ars Nova Theatre, and the Cape Cod Theatre Project.
Four interlocking monologues about genius and megalomania in the lives of Bertolt Brecht
, P.T. Barnum, Nikola Tesla
, and L. Ron Hubbard
which has been produced at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Joe's Pub at the Public Theater, Galapagos Art Space in New York City, and the Capitol Hill Arts Center in Seattle. A book adaptation of the work is due soon.
A monologue about James Frey
, Oprah, lying, and telling the truth. Ran Off-Broadway in New York City at Ars Nova Theatre.
Invincible Summer is about the history of the New York City transit system, loss and democracy in our time. It has been produced at the Public Theater, Yale Repertory Theatre, American Repertory Theatre, ACT Theatre in Seattle, and the 2006 Spoleto Festival.
Among other things, the piece deals with the board game
, Nikola Tesla
, Bill Gates
, Wal-Mart
, and the author's home town in Maine
. Monopoly! was developed at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, and has been produced at the Ohio Theatre by Les Freres Corbusier, American Repertory Theatre, at the 2006 Spoleto Festival and Seattle's Bumbershoot Festival, the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, the Noorderzon Festival in The Netherlands, FirstWorksProv, and many more.
All Stories Are Fiction began at Seattle's Performance Space 122 where Daisey performed new shows every Monday night for two seasons in 2004 and 2005. For this series Daisey makes no notes of any kind until one hour before the performance, and then creates a show extemporaneously onstage. Theaters that have produced Stories include ACT Theatre, Portland Center Stage, the Maui Cultural Arts Center, and Seattle's Capitol Hill Arts Center among many more. There have been over 40 different monologues produced in the series so far, each performed only one time for a live audience, and no two containing any of the same material or stories.
The Ugly American, a story of theater and its discontents that covers Daisey's life as a student in London torn between two very different worlds, has been produced by Seattle's ACT Theatre, the 2005 Spoleto Festival, and Berkeley Repertory Theatre after receiving workshops at Manhattan Theatre Club, Intiman Theatre, and the Cape Cod Theatre Project. In 2005 the BBC
aired a radio adaptation of this monologue on Radio Four.
21 Dog Years began in New York's Speakeasy Backroom in February 2001, where it received the attention of various media outlets, from Entertainment Weekly
to South African Public Radio to David Letterman
. Daisey then took the show Off-Broadway
where it played for six months at the Cherry Lane Theatre
before going to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Seattle's Intiman Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Portland Center Stage, and numerous engagements around the world. In 2002, the Free Press (an imprint of Simon & Schuster
) published Daisey’s book version of the tale under the same name, and in 2004 the BBC
aired Daisey’s radio adaptation of his monologue on Radio Four.
A monologue about Daisey visiting post-Soviet Warsaw and his father's counseling practice treating post traumatic stress disorder in war veterans, interwoven with the history of his father's time in Vietnam. Originally produced by 24/7 Productions in Seattle in June 1998.
A monologue of the Great American Roadtrip, Daisey is crossing the country from Maine to Seattle or bust in a story that jumps back and forth between two autobiographical storylines: a crumbling relationship with a pregnant girlfriend and a cross-country exodus from New England. Originally produced by Open Circle Theater in Seattle in 1997, Wasting Your Breath was remounted and produced at Berkeley Repertory Theatre
in 2004.
.
on October 17, 2008. It was previous developed at Soho Rep as a part of their 2008-2009 Writer/Director Lab Readings in a workshop directed by Maria Goyanes.
. Daisey was nominated for two 2009 Drama League Awards and a 2009 Outer Critics Circle Award
for If You See Something, Say Something.
, was disrupted when over 80 audience members from a public high school in Norco, California
, left the production mid-performance, with one audience member walking on stage to pour water over Daisey's hand-written performance notes. Daisey had this to say:
Daisey later sought out and spoke with representatives of the group, including the member who destroyed his notes.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
monologist
Monologist
-Monologist:A monologist is a solo artist who recites or gives dramatic readings from a monologue, soliloquy, poetry or work of literature for the entertainment of an audience...
, author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
, and actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
best known for his full-length extemporaneous monologues. His breakthrough work 21 Dog Years is an account of life as an Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
employee during the dot-com boom
Dot-com bubble
The dot-com bubble was a speculative bubble covering roughly 1995–2000 during which stock markets in industrialized nations saw their equity value rise rapidly from growth in the more...
. Since that time he has created monologues about Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla was a Serbian-American inventor, mechanical engineer, and electrical engineer...
, L. Ron Hubbard
L. Ron Hubbard
Lafayette Ronald Hubbard , better known as L. Ron Hubbard , was an American pulp fiction author and religious leader who founded the Church of Scientology...
, the Department of Homeland Security, the history of the New York transit system, 9/11, the inventor of the neutron bomb, Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. , branded as Walmart since 2008 and Wal-Mart before then, is an American public multinational corporation that runs chains of large discount department stores and warehouse stores. The company is the world's 18th largest public corporation, according to the Forbes Global 2000...
and a variety of other topics, weaving together events from his own life with historical facts. Paper Magazine described him thusly: "...his skill is that he is able to talk about the historical and make it human, the personal and make it universal, so that the listener is both informed and transformed." He is married to his director and collaborator, Jean-Michele Gregory. Currently, they reside 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...
.
Monologues
- All the Hours in the Day (2011)
Daisey presented his monumental 24-hour monologue at Portland's TBA Festival
Time-Based Art Festival
The Time-Based Art Festival is an annual interdisciplinary art and performance festival presented by the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art . It occurs over a ten-day period in September in Portland, Oregon in the United States...
in September 2011. Emphasizing themes of loss, transformation, and the desire for authenticity, Daisey weaves together stories from his life with fictional, Jungian elements. His wife, a dead high school friend, Warren Zevon
Warren Zevon
Warren William Zevon was an American rock singer-songwriter and musician noted for including his sometimes sardonic opinions of life in his musical lyrics, composing songs that were sometimes humorous and often had political or historical themes.Zevon's work has often been praised by well-known...
, Philip K. Dick
Philip K. Dick
Philip Kindred Dick was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist whose published work is almost entirely in the science fiction genre. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysical themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments and altered...
, David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
, and The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...
all feature prominently.
- The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve JobsSteve JobsSteven Paul Jobs was an American businessman and inventor widely recognized as a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer revolution. He was co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc...
(2010)
Daisey's next monologue, which came to Portland's TBA Festival
Time-Based Art Festival
The Time-Based Art Festival is an annual interdisciplinary art and performance festival presented by the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art . It occurs over a ten-day period in September in Portland, Oregon in the United States...
in September 2010, Berkeley Repertory Theatre in January 2011, and played in Seattle in April–May 2011, examined globalization
Globalization
Globalization refers to the increasingly global relationships of culture, people and economic activity. Most often, it refers to economics: the global distribution of the production of goods and services, through reduction of barriers to international trade such as tariffs, export fees, and import...
by exploring the exploitation of Chinese workers through the lens of "the rise and fall and rise of Apple
Apple
The apple is the pomaceous fruit of the apple tree, species Malus domestica in the rose family . It is one of the most widely cultivated tree fruits, and the most widely known of the many members of genus Malus that are used by humans. Apple grow on small, deciduous trees that blossom in the spring...
, industrial design
Industrial design
Industrial design is the use of a combination of applied art and applied science to improve the aesthetics, ergonomics, and usability of a product, but it may also be used to improve the product's marketability and production...
, and the human price we are willing to pay for our technology, woven together in a complex narrative."
- Barring the Unforeseen (2010)
A piece "about ghost stories and why we tell them." It played the IRT Theatre in downtown New York City the week of Halloween 2010.
- The Envoy's Dilemma (2009)
Daisey's rarely performed piece on his 2008 visit to Tajikistan
Tajikistan
Tajikistan , officially the Republic of Tajikistan , is a mountainous landlocked country in Central Asia. Afghanistan borders it to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and China to the east....
with the United States State Department. It was most recently performed at the Yukon Arts Centre
Yukon Arts Centre
The Yukon Arts Centre is a non-profit corporation in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada. It presents works of territorial, national and international importance....
and in Banff in September 2009.
- The Last Cargo Cult (2009)
Daisey tells of a trip to the remote Pacific island of Tanna in which inhabitants are members of a cargo cult
Cargo cult
A cargo cult is a religious practice that has appeared in many traditional pre-industrial tribal societies in the wake of interaction with technologically advanced cultures. The cults focus on obtaining the material wealth of the advanced culture through magic and religious rituals and practices...
based around abandoned World War II bases. Stories of belief and trust from this “cargo cult” are woven against questions about the international financial crisis.
- Mysteries of the Unexplained (2009)
A series of one-night-only performances similar to "All Stories are Fiction." Each performance "explores trivial elements of our modern world, in the belief that the things we honestly think about most of the time deserve time in the spotlight." All performances will be held at Joe's Pub
Joe's Pub
Joe's Pub at Public Theater is a nightclub that hosts live performances regularly. The venue, which is a non-profit operation, is located at 425 Lafayette Street near Astor Place in Manhattan, New York City...
. The three topics were Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
, bacon
Bacon
Bacon is a cured meat prepared from a pig. It is first cured using large quantities of salt, either in a brine or in a dry packing; the result is fresh bacon . Fresh bacon may then be further dried for weeks or months in cold air, boiled, or smoked. Fresh and dried bacon must be cooked before eating...
, and the boardwalk
Boardwalk
A boardwalk, in the conventional sense, is a wooden walkway for pedestrians and sometimes vehicles, often found along beaches, but they are also common as paths through wetlands, coastal dunes, and other sensitive environments....
.
- If You See Something Say Something (2008)
Daisey tackles a story at the heart of our world today: the surprising, secret history of the Department of Homeland Security. This is woven together with the untold story of the father of the neutron bomb and a pilgrimage to the Trinity blast site, where atomic fire rewrote history a half a century ago. It was performed in Santa Fe, Washington DC, Portland, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago is a contemporary art museum near Water Tower Place in downtown Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The museum, which was established in 1967, is one of the world's largest contemporary art venues...
before running in the Public Theater's 2008/2009 season in New York City. A feature film
Feature film
In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...
recording of the work by Steve Anderson was filmed yet remains unreleased.
- How Theater Failed America (2008)
Daisey explores the rise and fall of the American regional theater system, the death of the repertory companies and the declining power of an art form to matter by implicating himself and the American theater as a whole. This controversial monologue has appeared at the Under The Radar festival, the Capitol Hill Arts Center in Seattle, the Public Theater, and the Barrow Street Theatre in New York City.
- Tongues Will Wag (2007)
A two-headed tale of love and loss, in which Daisey juxtaposes the tragedy of a young couple undergoing an unwanted pregnancy with the unlikely story of raising a puppy to adulthood. It has appeared at American Repertory Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Ars Nova Theatre, and the Cape Cod Theatre Project.
- Great Men of Genius (2006)
Four interlocking monologues about genius and megalomania in the lives of Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
, P.T. Barnum, Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla was a Serbian-American inventor, mechanical engineer, and electrical engineer...
, and L. Ron Hubbard
L. Ron Hubbard
Lafayette Ronald Hubbard , better known as L. Ron Hubbard , was an American pulp fiction author and religious leader who founded the Church of Scientology...
which has been produced at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Joe's Pub at the Public Theater, Galapagos Art Space in New York City, and the Capitol Hill Arts Center in Seattle. A book adaptation of the work is due soon.
- TRUTH {the heart is a million little pieces above all things} (2006)
A monologue about James Frey
James Frey
James Christopher Frey is an American writer. His books A Million Little Pieces and My Friend Leonard , as well as Bright Shiny Morning , were bestsellers...
, Oprah, lying, and telling the truth. Ran Off-Broadway in New York City at Ars Nova Theatre.
- Invincible Summer (2005)
Invincible Summer is about the history of the New York City transit system, loss and democracy in our time. It has been produced at the Public Theater, Yale Repertory Theatre, American Repertory Theatre, ACT Theatre in Seattle, and the 2006 Spoleto Festival.
- Monopoly! (2005)
Among other things, the piece deals with the board game
Monopoly (game)
Marvin Gardens, the leading yellow property on the board shown, is actually a misspelling of the original location name, Marven Gardens. The misspelling was said to be introduced by Charles Todd and passed on when his home-made Monopoly board was copied by Charles Darrow and thence to Parker...
, Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla was a Serbian-American inventor, mechanical engineer, and electrical engineer...
, Bill Gates
Bill Gates
William Henry "Bill" Gates III is an American business magnate, investor, philanthropist, and author. Gates is the former CEO and current chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen...
, Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. , branded as Walmart since 2008 and Wal-Mart before then, is an American public multinational corporation that runs chains of large discount department stores and warehouse stores. The company is the world's 18th largest public corporation, according to the Forbes Global 2000...
, and the author's home town in Maine
Maine
Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...
. Monopoly! was developed at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, and has been produced at the Ohio Theatre by Les Freres Corbusier, American Repertory Theatre, at the 2006 Spoleto Festival and Seattle's Bumbershoot Festival, the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, the Noorderzon Festival in The Netherlands, FirstWorksProv, and many more.
- All Stories Are Fiction (2004)
All Stories Are Fiction began at Seattle's Performance Space 122 where Daisey performed new shows every Monday night for two seasons in 2004 and 2005. For this series Daisey makes no notes of any kind until one hour before the performance, and then creates a show extemporaneously onstage. Theaters that have produced Stories include ACT Theatre, Portland Center Stage, the Maui Cultural Arts Center, and Seattle's Capitol Hill Arts Center among many more. There have been over 40 different monologues produced in the series so far, each performed only one time for a live audience, and no two containing any of the same material or stories.
- The Ugly American (2003)
The Ugly American, a story of theater and its discontents that covers Daisey's life as a student in London torn between two very different worlds, has been produced by Seattle's ACT Theatre, the 2005 Spoleto Festival, and Berkeley Repertory Theatre after receiving workshops at Manhattan Theatre Club, Intiman Theatre, and the Cape Cod Theatre Project. In 2005 the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
aired a radio adaptation of this monologue on Radio Four.
- 21 Dog Years (2001)
21 Dog Years began in New York's Speakeasy Backroom in February 2001, where it received the attention of various media outlets, from Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
to South African Public Radio to David Letterman
David Letterman
David Michael Letterman is an American television host and comedian. He hosts the late night television talk show, Late Show with David Letterman, broadcast on CBS. Letterman has been a fixture on late night television since the 1982 debut of Late Night with David Letterman on NBC...
. Daisey then took the show Off-Broadway
Off-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...
where it played for six months at the Cherry Lane Theatre
Cherry Lane Theatre
The Cherry Lane Theatre , located at 38 Commerce Street in the borough of Manhattan, was New York City's oldest, continuously running off-Broadway theater...
before going to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Seattle's Intiman Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Portland Center Stage, and numerous engagements around the world. In 2002, the Free Press (an imprint of Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster, Inc., a division of CBS Corporation, is a publisher founded in New York City in 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. It is one of the four largest English-language publishers, alongside Random House, Penguin and HarperCollins...
) published Daisey’s book version of the tale under the same name, and in 2004 the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
aired Daisey’s radio adaptation of his monologue on Radio Four.
- I Miss The Cold War (1998)
A monologue about Daisey visiting post-Soviet Warsaw and his father's counseling practice treating post traumatic stress disorder in war veterans, interwoven with the history of his father's time in Vietnam. Originally produced by 24/7 Productions in Seattle in June 1998.
- Wasting Your Breath (1997)
A monologue of the Great American Roadtrip, Daisey is crossing the country from Maine to Seattle or bust in a story that jumps back and forth between two autobiographical storylines: a crumbling relationship with a pregnant girlfriend and a cross-country exodus from New England. Originally produced by Open Circle Theater in Seattle in 1997, Wasting Your Breath was remounted and produced at 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...
in 2004.
Audio recordings
21 Dog Years, Monopoly, Invincible Summer, Great Men of Genius, and seven All Stories are Fiction installments are available for purchase on Audible.comAudible.com
Audible.com is an Internet provider of spoken audio entertainment, information, and educational programming.Audible sells digital audiobooks, radio and TV programs, and audio versions of magazines and newspapers....
.
Plays
Daisey's first play The Moon Is a Dead World premiered at the Annex Theatre in Seattle, WashingtonSeattle, Washington
Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...
on October 17, 2008. It was previous developed at Soho Rep as a part of their 2008-2009 Writer/Director Lab Readings in a workshop directed by Maria Goyanes.
Reviews
The New York Times said about his work: "The master storyteller...one of the finest solo performers of his generation. What distinguishes him from most solo performers is how elegantly he blends personal stories, historical digressions and philosophical ruminations. He has the curiosity of a highly literate dilettante and a preoccupation with alternative histories, secrets large and small, and the fuzzy line where truth and fiction blur. Mr. Daisey’s greatest subject is himself." The Boston Globe described his monologues, "Sharp-witted, passionately delivered talk about matters both small and huge, at once utterly individual and achingly universal."Awards and honors
Daisey has received the Bay Area Critics Circle Award, three Seattle Times Footlight Awards, and a MacDowell FellowshipMacDowell Colony
The MacDowell Colony is an art colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, U.S.A., founded in 1907 by Marian MacDowell, pianist and wife of composer Edward MacDowell. She established the institution and its endowment chiefly with donated funds...
. Daisey was nominated for two 2009 Drama League Awards and a 2009 Outer Critics Circle Award
Outer Critics Circle Award
The Outer Critics Circle Awards are presented annually for theatrical achievements both on and Off-Broadway and were begun during the 1949-1950 theater season. The awards are decided upon by theater critics who review for out-of-town newspapers, national publications, and other media outlets...
for If You See Something, Say Something.
Invincible Summer walkout
The April 19th, 2007 performance of Invincible Summer at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, MassachusettsCambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
, was disrupted when over 80 audience members from a public high school in Norco, California
Norco, California
Norco is a city in Riverside County, California, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 27,063, up from 24,157 at the 2000 census...
, left the production mid-performance, with one audience member walking on stage to pour water over Daisey's hand-written performance notes. Daisey had this to say:
Last night’s performance of INVINCIBLE SUMMER was disrupted when eighty seven members of a Christian group walked out of the show en masse, and chose to physically attack my work by pouring water on and destroying the original of the show outline.
I’m still dealing with all the ramifications, but here’s what it felt like from my end: I am performing the show to a packed house, when suddenly the lights start coming up in the house as a flood of people start walking down the aisles–they looked like a flock of birds who’d been startled, the way they all moved so quickly, and at the same moment…it was shocking, to see them surging down the aisles. The show halted as they fled, and at this moment a member of their group strode up to the table, stood looking down on me and poured water all over the outline, drenching everything in a kind of anti-baptism.
Daisey later sought out and spoke with representatives of the group, including the member who destroyed his notes.