Creativity and Alienation, Part 1: A Creativity & Difference Conversation between Elizabeth and Michael

In today’s talk, Elizabeth interviews Michael about his thoughts on alienation as a creative force.

Educator, poet, fiction writer, playwright, performer, director, creativist—Michael has been active in DC’s cultural life since the early 1980s. Holding an MFA in Directing and a PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies, Michael co-founded The Sanctuary Theatre in 1983. Through The Performing Knowledge Project, he introduced audiences to multidisciplinary poetry-in-performance pieces: Embodying Poe, The Whitman Project: Song of Myself, and HOWL in the Time of Trump. He also worked with Playwrights Forum that developed and staged many of his original plays.

During those years, Michael taught and served in leadership roles at the Washington Ethical High School (now the Nora School), The New School of Northern Virginia, the University of Maryland, College Park, and elsewhere as a writer/educator. He was also chief theatre critic for DC Metro Theatre Arts for several years where he had a weekly column SPINE: Theatre, Culture, and History in the Belly of the Beast.

Michael’s first book of poetry, The Dark Diary in 27 refracted moments, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2023. His short story, “A Man’s Yard”, published in Stories that Need to be Told, won TulipTree Publishing’s Passion Prize in 2023.

Michael is currently seeking a publisher for his novel, “The Green Man and the White House: a Tale of Modern Apocrypha” and for his 2nd book of poetry, “Prison Memoir”.

For more information about Michael, click here and here.

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