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Michael
Gene Sullivan
is an actor, writer, director, blogger, and teacher committed to developing theatre of social justice, of political self-determination, and, of course, musical comedy.
A veteran actor, Michael has acting credits at the Bay Area's three Tony award-winning regional theatres:
American Conservatory
Theater
, San Francisco Mime
Troupe
, and the Berkeley Repertory Theatre. He has also performed at the Denver Center Theatre Company, The Magic Theatre, The Marin Theatre Company, Central Works, Word for
Word
, Lorraine Hansberry
Theater
,
San Francisco Shakespeare
Festival
, and Theaterworks, as well performances off-Broadway, at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the
Asian People's Theater Festival (Hong Kong), The Canadian Popular
Theatre Festival, the International Outdoor Theatre Festival (Korea), the Israel Theatre Festival, and the Theatre Action Festival
(Belgium). Since 1988 Michael has also been a principal member of the San Francisco Mime
Troupe
, where he has acted in, directed, and/or directed over twenty-five plays in the US and abroad.
In 2007 Michael was awarded the Theatre Bay Area New Works Grant for playwrighting.
"1984", his stage adaptation of George Orwell's dystopic novel of the oppressive present/future, opened at Los Angeles' Actor's Gang Theatre, directed by Academy Award winning actor Tim Robbins. Since opening in 2006 the production had repeated extended runs in LA, and has toured to Australia, Europe, Asia, Central and South America, and 40 of the United States. Other plays include TO THE REPUBLIC, a new political musical, "RECIPE", an all-woman political farce ( which in 2012 had an all-star reading at the Will Geer Theater in Los Angeles,) and, inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement, a modern, worker oriented adaptation of Charles Dickens' CHRISTMAS CAROL His screenplay work includes ANGELS - a drama about the sex trade in post-colonial modern Philippines written with John Grilley, and he worked with the Ellington Estate to write LOVE YOU MADLY, a bio-pic on the life of Duke Ellington.
An accomplished director, Michael has also staged
several of SFMT's most popular shows, including 1600 TRANSYLVANIA AVENUE, VERONIQUE, COAST CITY CONFIDENTIAL, RED STATE, FOR THE GREATER GOOD, and co-directed MAKING A KILLING and MR. SMITH GOES TO OBSCURISTAN. Other directing credits include work with the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, and Mystic Bison Theatre, and the 2012 production of JULIUS CAESAR for the African American Shakespeare Company. Michael was
Artistic Director of the Street of Dreams Theater ('80 - '86),
Associate Artistic Director of the Lorraine Hansberry Theater ('93 -
'94.) Michael was awarded the Sacramento Area Regional Theatre Award for Best Direction for I AM A MAN at the Harbor Theatre and his re-staging of SFMT's I AIN'T YO UNCLE won several Dramalogue Awards, including Outstanding Direction. From 2008 - 2010 Michael was also the director of San Francisco's all woman, all-amazing, all-exhilarating, all-dangerous, and flat-out funny CIRCUS FINELLI. Knife Juggling, accordian slinging, samba dancing clowns. With a musical cow. Bring the kids.
One of the original teachers for the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival's groundbreaking "Midnight Shakespeare" program for inner-city teens, Michael has been a teacher and director for the California Shakespeare Festival Summer Camp, and has
taught workshops in Play Creation, Acting, Melodrama, and Physical
Comedy at colleges and universities across the country. He has also worked as a "script doctor" and advisor for emerging playwrights, and has served as Playwright-in-Residence for
the Young California Playwright's Project since 2001, teaching at-risk high school students how to create plays on subjects that matter to them, using revolutionary drama to change the world into the place they know it can be.
 
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