Michael is a performer who has been writing and acting for the theater for over two decades. Milligan has appeared on the Broadway stage as Little Charles in August: Osage County, De Bries in La Bete, and as a ‘raver’ and understudy on Jerusalem. Off-Broadway credits include Will Eno’s Thom Pain and The Golem with Robert Prosky. Other New York credits include the world premiere of The Empty Ocean with Harold Clurman Theater Lab, and Nightlands with New Georges. Milligan has performed his one man show, Mercy Killers, around the US in places such as Columbus, Cleveland, Albany, Athens, Toledo, Minneapolis, Duluth, Burbank, Hollywood, Stockton, Nevada City, San Francisco, Washington D.C., Charlottesville, Dayton, Rochester, Mankato, San Diego, Sacramento, Philadelphia and more in a variety of settings including professional theatres, student unions, union halls, doctors’ homes, and the House of Representatives Hearing Room for members of the Minnesota legislature. Mercy Killers received a 2013 Fringe First Award during its recent run at the Edinburgh Festival- the performance also garnered a rare 5 star review from the Scotsman.
A reading of Milligan’s verse play, Phaeton was presented by the Harold Clurman Theater Lab featuring Mark Rylance, David Hyde Pierce, and Joanna Lumley. The play was later presented by conservatory students at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting and as a part of the NYU graduate acting program’s ‘Studio Tisch.’ His adaptation of Jack London’s The Sea Wolf has undergone several workshops and readings featuring Jay O. Sanders as the enigmatic Wolf Larsen. Milligan got his start writing stories for his mother, who is a professional storyteller in Central Ohio.
Milligan received his training from Juilliard where he won the John Houseman Prize for excellence in classical drama. His love of Shakespeare has taken him around the world performing the bard for the Shakespeare Theater, Royal Shakespeare Company, Shakespeare and Company, Cincinatti Playhouse, St. Louis Rep, the Utah, Alabama, Illinois, Colorado Shakespeare Festivals, Milwaukee Shakes, Shakespeare Festival of St. Louis, and New Jersey Shakespeare in roles as diverse as Hamlet, Mercutio, Romeo, Angelo, Cassio, Dromio, Lucentio, Antipholus, Mark Antony, Edgar, Orlando, as well as many spear carriers and shrubbery movers. Milligan is a sometime instructor of Shakespeare at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting.
He has also appeared at many of the nation’s top regional theaters including the Guthrie, Westport Country Playhouse, Charlotte Rep, The McCarter Theater, and Folger Theatre in Washington D.C.
BWW Blog: Michael Milligan of Off-Broadway's MERCY KILLERS - Summoning the Supreme Objective
December 23, 2013
December 23, 2013
Representing the Stella Adler Studio of Acting is a great honor and responsibility. Stella Adler along with the other members of the Group Theater revolutionized the American Theater scene. Stella Adler, Harold Clurman, Lee Strasberg, Bobby Lewis, Elia Kazan, Clifford Odets, Sanford Meisner, Lee J. Cobb, these names are legends to drama students and theater history buffs. And when one looks at the legacy they left behind through successive generations of students- Marlon Brando, Elaine Stritch, Warren Beatty, Estelle Parsons, Robert Deniro, James Dean, Al Pacino, Paul Newman, the list goes on and on, one begins to get a sense of the impact the Group Theater has had, not only in America, but the world.
BWW Blog: Michael Milligan of Off-Broadway's MERCY KILLERS - Pinocchio on the Fringe
December 16, 2013
December 16, 2013
Taking Mercy Killers to the Edinburgh Fringe was a last minute idea. I wanted to keep the show going and had been to the Fringe as a kid with the Columbus Children's Theater. It was a truly formative experience, and I always wanted to go back.
BWW Blog: Michael Milligan of Off-Broadway's MERCY KILLERS - Passing the Hat
December 11, 2013
December 11, 2013
Most kids in drama school dream about working at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, and I am certainly no exception. And so there is an irony that for me, it was the achievement of this milestone, working at the Guthrie, that was the turning point for me where I decided to put my conventional career on hold and step into the unknown.
BWW Blog: Michael Milligan of Off-Broadway's MERCY KILLERS - A Leap Into the Void!
December 4, 2013
December 4, 2013
A Leap into the Void! musings on the upcoming run of Mercy Killers, by Michael Milligan
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