ARTISTIC STATEMENT
Oscar Wilde said “If you’re going to tell people the truth you better make them laugh or they’ll kill you.”
I’ve always tried to create pieces that are entertaining but also are calls to action, to engage the audience with comedy, irony, and satire while activating them to fight against the terrible injustices of our modern society. I want the audience to have a great time… then march out of the theatre and overthrow oppression by the corporatists. I want them to see the hilarious hypocrisy of a government that sells itself as a democratic republic, but is really a system Of, By, and For a Very Few of the People… then for that audience to immediately demand reality match the high-minded rhetoric. I want to remind the audience that they are, most likely, members of the Working Class, and to inspire them with the idea that after the curtain falls they can do something about the inequality and injustice they experience every day.
And I want it to be funny!
It is always a challenge to make an audience laugh while showing them the seemingly overwhelming odds stacked against, not discouraging them, and giving them the ammunition they need to not stop fighting until they win, but that’s my job.
MICHAEL GENE SULLIVAN
Michael Gene Sullivan is an actor, writer, director, blogger, and teacher committed to developing theatre of social and economic justice, of political self-determination, and, of course, musical comedy. Michael was recently awarded a 2017 Playwriting Fellowship from the Djerassi Arts Center.
1984, (available from Playscripts.com) his critically-acclaimed stage adaptation of George Orwell’s classic novel, opened at Los Angeles’ Actors’ Gang Theatre under the direction of Academy Award winning actor Tim Robbins, and enjoyed a recent revival in 2016. 1984 has had repeated extended runs in LA, toured to Australia, Europe, Asia, Central and South America, and 40 of the United States. In 2013 1984 was published in the United States, Canada, and Spain and is available in four languages. 1984 will open at the Williamston Theatre, Williamston, Michigan March 23rd. and in the 2017 season it will make its premiere in Kiev, Ukraine at the Kiev Drama Theatre. A ferocious and provocative adaptation of one of the most prescient works of literature of the last century, 1984 asks: “What does it mean to be an individual?” ”What does it mean to be human?”
He wrote the adaptation in response to the “War on Terror” surveillance/torture state the Bush/Cheney administration had initiated, and he thought of the play as a warning, a signpost pointing to where our country could go if we were not vigilant.
Well, we went there. His one person show, DID ANYONE EVER TELL YOU – YOU LOOK LIKE HUEY P. NEWTON?, premiered at the New York Fringe Festival, and went on to award winning and critically acclaimed runs at the Vancouver Fringe Festival, and at the Eureka Theatre in San Francisco. So what do you do when you find out that your hero, the icon of the Left, is just a human, with all the faults and more, like any other person? Does it invalidate the Movement? Does it mean that everything your parents taught you was wrong? Was the country that chased you through the streets and killed all of your heroes right all along? Or can you listen to the message, and let the messenger be human?
This show is a true comic drama of the search for an answer. A one person, multi-character history of my life, the Sixties, and the stories all these people were compelled to tell me. Because I look like Huey.
List of Plays: Michael Gene Sullivan
Website: www.michaelgenesullivan.com
Twitter: @Michaeloutloud
Instagram: michaelgenesullivan