Michael Mitnick | |
---|---|
Born | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S. | September 7, 1983
Education | Harvard University (BA) Yale University (MFA) |
Notable works | The Current War (2017) Fly By Night (2014) The Giver (2014) |
Notable awards | Drama Desk Best Musical Nominee (2015) |
Spouse | Jessica Brickman (m. 2019) |
Michael Mitnick (born September 7, 1983) is an American playwright and screenwriter.
Mitnick grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and attended Fox Chapel Area High School, a public school in the Allegheny Valley. His father is a professor and the co-originator of The Theory of Agency. [1] His mother is a public librarian. [2] As a high school student, he worked in the graphic design department of WQED Pittsburgh and Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. [3] Mitnick attended Harvard University, where he wrote or co-wrote four musical comedies, including one Hasty Pudding Theatricals show. His musical Snapshots had two off-Broadway performances in New York. He was a member of the A capella group The Krokodiloes. After graduating in 2006, Mitnick worked at The Atlantic Monthly [4] before earning his Master of Fine Arts degree in playwriting from The Yale School of Drama. [5]
Title | Venue | Year |
---|---|---|
Elijah | Yale School of Drama | 2010 with Lupita Nyong'o [6] |
Babs the Dodo | Washington Ensemble Theatre, Seattle | 2011 [7] |
Sex Lives of our Parents | Second Stage, New York | 2011 [8] |
Ed, Downloaded | Denver Center Theater Company | 2013 [9] |
Spacebar a Broadway Play by Kyle Sugarman | The Wild Project, New York | 2014 [10] |
The Siegel | South Coast Repertory, Costa Mesa | 2017 [11] |
Mysterious Circumstance | The Geffen Playhouse, New York | 2019 [12] |
Scotland, PA | Roundabout Theatre Company | 2019 [13] [14] |
Title | Year |
---|---|
The Giver | 2014 [15] |
The Current War | 2017 [16] |
The Staggering Girl | 2019 |
Muppet Man | TBA [17] |
Light of Days | TBA |
Title | Year |
---|---|
Vinyl | 2016 [18] |
Siegfried & Roy HBO limited series | TBA |
Dial M for Murder | TBA |
Mitnick co-wrote the holiday song "Christmas You Go So Fast," which was featured on Vinyl, an HBO series executive produced by Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger. [19]
He also co-wrote, with Will Connolly and Kim Rosenstock, the musical, Fly By Night, which released a cast recording for its Off-Broadway run. [20]
Variety magazine selected Mitnick as one of "10 Screenwriters to watch" in 2013. [21] He received the 2012 Visionary Playwright Award from Theater Masters. [22] He is a two-time winner of the Edgerton New American Foundation Award, for The Siegel (2017) and Fly By Night (2011), the latter of which was also nominated for four 2015 Drama Desk Awards including Best Musical. [23]
In May 2017, Deadline placed Mitnick's original screenplay Some Are Born Great on its 2017 Cannes Hotlist, and he was slated to direct the film. [24]
Mitnick is reported to be writing the screenplay for a forthcoming Audrey Hepburn biopic. [25] He is also currently working on a limited series about Siegfried & Roy, adapting the Judy Batalion novel Light of Days, and adapting the anthology series Dial M for Murder for MGM. [26]
James Maury Henson was an American puppeteer, animator, actor, and filmmaker who achieved worldwide notability as the creator of the Muppets. Henson was also well known for creating Fraggle Rock (1983–1987) and as the director of The Dark Crystal (1982) and Labyrinth (1986).
The Muppets are an American ensemble cast of puppet characters known for an absurdist, surrealist, burlesque, and self-referential style of variety-sketch comedy. Created by Jim Henson in 1955, they are the focus of a media franchise that encompasses children's films, television, music, and other media associated with the characters. Owned by the Jim Henson Company for nearly five decades, the franchise was purchased by the Walt Disney Company in 2004.
Fran Brill is an American retired actress and puppeteer, best known for her roles on Sesame Street, as well as playing Sally Hayes in the Hal Ashby film Being There (1979), Dana Mardukas in the Martin Brest film Midnight Run (1988) and Lily Marvin in the Frank Oz film What About Bob? (1991).
Rowlf the Dog is a Muppet character created and originally performed by Jim Henson. Known most notably as the resident pianist on the sketch comedy television series The Muppet Show, Rowlf is a scruffy brown dog of indeterminate breed with a rounded black nose and long floppy ears. Laid-back and wisecracking, his humor is characterized as deadpan and as such, he is one of few Muppets who is rarely flustered by the show's prevalent mayhem. Henson's closest collaborators and family members have claimed Rowlf to be the Muppet character most similar to Henson's real-life personality.
Michael Frank Park is an American actor, best known for his roles as Jack Snyder on As the World Turns, Larry Murphy in the original Broadway cast of Dear Evan Hansen (2016), and reporter Tom Holloway in the third season of the Netflix series Stranger Things (2019).
The Jim Henson Company is an American entertainment company located in Los Angeles, California. The company is known for its innovations in the field of puppetry, particularly through the creation of Kermit the Frog and the Muppets characters.
The Muppets Take Manhattan is a 1984 American musical comedy-drama film directed by Frank Oz and the third theatrical film featuring the Muppets. The film stars Muppet performers Jim Henson, Oz, Dave Goelz, Steve Whitmire, Richard Hunt, Jerry Nelson, as well as special appearances by Art Carney, James Coco, Dabney Coleman, Gregory Hines, Linda Lavin, Liza Minnelli, Joan Rivers, and Brooke Shields. Filmed in New York City during the prior summer, it was released theatrically on July 13, 1984, by TriStar Pictures. A fantasy sequence in the film introduced the Muppet Babies, toddler versions of the lead Muppet characters.
John David Logan is an American playwright and filmmaker. He is known for his work as a screenwriter for such films as Ridley Scott's Gladiator (2000), Martin Scorsese's The Aviator (2004) and Hugo (2011), Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) and Sam Mendes' James Bond films Skyfall (2012), and Spectre (2015). He has been nominated three times for Academy Awards, and has won a Tony Award and a Golden Globe Award.
The Harvard Krokodiloes are Harvard University's oldest a cappella singing group, founded in 1946. The group consists of twelve tuxedo-clad undergraduates, and they sing songs from the Great American Songbook and beyond.
Bill Barretta is an American puppeteer, producer, writer, director and actor, who is best known for providing the puppetry and voice of The Muppets characters such as Pepe the King Prawn, Bobo the Bear and Johnny Fiama. He originated the role of Louie, Elmo's dad, on Sesame Street. Barretta also inherited the roles of Rowlf the Dog, The Swedish Chef, and Dr. Teeth after the death of The Muppets creator Jim Henson.
Brook Maurio, known professionally as by the pen name Diablo Cody, is an American writer and producer. She gained recognition for her candid blog and subsequent memoir, Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper (2005). Cody received critical acclaim for her screenwriting debut film, Juno (2007), winning both the Academy Award and the BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay.
Michael John Rupert is an American actor, singer, director and composer. In 1968, he made his Broadway debut in The Happy Time as Bibi Bonnard for which he received a Tony Award nomination and the Theater World Award. Later, he starred as the title role in Pippin for three years on Broadway starting in 1974. He originated the role of Marvin in the William Finn musicals March of the Falsettos, Falsettoland and Falsettos. In 2007, he originated the role of Professor Callahan in the Broadway cast of Legally Blonde. Rupert has been the nominee and recipient of several Tony and Drama Desk awards. He won a Tony for his performance in Sweet Charity in 1986.
William Scott Prady is an American television writer and producer known for co-creating and producing The Big Bang Theory (2007–2019) and The Muppets (2015–2016). He also served as an executive producer on Dharma & Greg (1997–2002), Good Morning Miami (2003), and Gilmore Girls (1997–2002).
Brian Yorkey is an American playwright and lyricist. His works often explore dark and controversial subject matter such as mental illness, grief, the underbelly of suburbia, and ethics in both psychiatry and public education.
Vertigo Entertainment is an American film and television production company based in Los Angeles, founded in 2001 by Roy Lee and Doug Davison.
Paramount Players is an American film production label of Paramount Pictures, focusing on "contemporary properties" while working with other Paramount Global brands. The name alludes to the company's earliest origins as Famous Players Film Company, before its 1914 founding by William Wadsworth Hodkinson.
Grey Henson is an American actor, dancer, and singer. He originated the role as Damian Hubbard in the Broadway production of Mean Girls, for which he earned a nomination for a 2018 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical, as well as Elder McKinley in both the Broadway and US national touring productions of The Book of Mormon.
Khris Davis is an American film, stage and television actor. He is best known for his roles as Steel in the drama film Judas and the Black Messiah and Malik in Space Jam: A New Legacy.
Jim Henson Idea Man is a 2024 American documentary film directed by Ron Howard, about puppeteer Jim Henson. The film chronicles Henson's life, from the early years of his career to the creation of properties like The Muppets, Sesame Street, and The Dark Crystal, and also focuses on his creative and romantic partnership with his wife Jane Henson. The film features interviews with family members and collaborators of Jim Henson, including Frank Oz.