The Voice - September 23, 2009
Nice notice for the festival, kind words for "Dialectic" and breathtakingly unflattering picture of Michael in this week's Village Voice...
Michael Louis Serafin-Wells: News
New York Days - September 11, 2009
Michael is in previews for Kia Corthron's "Dialectic" and opening on Monday. Bipolar Explorer is back in action, as well. Check the photo page for new snaps...
Opening in NYC - September 7, 2009
Michael is in technical rehearsals in New York for Kia Corthron's "Dialectic", which begins previews later this week.
Dialectic - August 24, 2009
Michael begins rehearsals in New York for Kia Corthron's "Dialectic" tomorrow.
Downtown - August 3, 2009
Reading tonight in New York directed by Wilson Milam with Neal Huff, Grant Shaud, Meredith Zinner, Summer Serafin, Derek Lucci and Geneva Carr.
Opening Night - July 17, 2009
Michael is opening Off-Broadway in "Two-Handers" directed by (Tony-nominee) Wilson Milam tonight in New York City.
Clip Job - July 4, 2009
You can see clips of Michael as Legal Aide attorney Clemens in 3 different episodes of NBC's "Law & Order" by following this link to YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmxVSQhyRM4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmxVSQhyRM4
w/Wilson in NYC - June 29, 2009
Michael will begin rehearsals in New York with director extraordinaire Wilson Milam (Tony nominee - "The Lieutenant of Inishmore") on Wednesday.
New Stuff - June 21, 2009
It's been a prolific couple of months which have seen the completion of both a new screenplay (2nd draft) and a new stageplay (1st draft), as well as a brace of new Bipolar Explorer tunes.
One of the demos, "Flag Day" has been posted on the BPX Tumblr site. Check it out! Here's the link:
http://bipolarexplorer.tumblr.com/post/127821429/demo-of-branding-spanking-new-bpx-tune-flag-day
One of the demos, "Flag Day" has been posted on the BPX Tumblr site. Check it out! Here's the link:
http://bipolarexplorer.tumblr.com/post/127821429/demo-of-branding-spanking-new-bpx-tune-flag-day
TV Guide - May 23, 2009
Michael will appear in "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" (episode "Security") re-broadcast this Monday, Memorial Day, May 25 4PM EST on the USA Network.
Best of... - May 4, 2009
They announced it in 2007 and they didn't complete publication until 2009 but Michael's TWO FROM THE LINE is coming out today as part of Smith & Kraus's "Best 10-Minute Plays - 2008" anthology.
Sad News - April 17, 2009
Michael is saddened to hear of the passing of Ed Braun - father of his pal, ex-Uncle lead guitarist Chas Milton Braun. Thoughts are with Chas and his family.
Film Festival - April 3, 2009
Michael is attending the Sonoma International Film Festival this weekend.
Curt - January 19, 2009
Michael is remembering his friend and mentor Curt Dempster, Founding Artistic Director of New York's Ensemble Studio Theatre, who died on this day in 2007. The following remarks are from Michael's address at Mr. Dempster's memorial service in April of that year:
"I met Curt the first week I was in New York. My friend Susanne Brinkley (I know) was casting final readings for his playwriting class. She put me in Kate Robin’s play that night and I met him the next morning in his office. He asked what my plans were. I told him I was interviewing with Michael Howard and he told me about Tannersville. The day after that I rang Michael Howard to confirm but Curt had already called to say I was studying with him instead. I think he kinda stole me.
I’m glad he did. I fucking loved him. He said the right thing at the wrong time. His dogs farted during important meetings. He wasn’t impressed with celebrity. Curt was the second person I called, after my Mom, when I heard that my father died. Something happened to me then. It feels a lot like that now.
People fall out of love with EST. They come and go and sometimes come back. Mark Roberts said the best thing about EST is that everybody thinks their era there was its hay day. I think that’s beautiful. But I don’t think that’s how Curt saw it. I think for him it was always in the present. His gift was to bring it all together cross-generational and alive. He brought people together. Not infrequently in vein-popping, messianic rage convinced he was doing it all wrong. It became a ritual that every few years some terribly earnest, disgruntled faction would rise to “save” the theatre from Curt. He outlasted nearly every insurrection but the cumulative effect allowed a narrative to emerge that the theatre was in constant crisis, forever teetering on the brink of financial ruin. No one wanted to take the theatre away from him it was assured, only the purse strings.
He lost his voice. Literally. There was this weird thing going on with his throat. The last class of interns thought it was his real voice because they’d never heard anything different. If you asked him about it he’d huskily whisper that it was getting better. But it fucking wasn’t. If the phone was ringing or somebody was talking in the lobby you couldn’t hear him. After the gypsy for “C” I had to kneel with my notebook on my leg and my ear next to his face to get his notes. The first thing he said was “you can take these or not but I’m right 100 percent of the time.”
At the end of his wake there was a movement to open his coffin. It was a closed casket but the whole reason he hadn’t been cremated immediately was because some thought it important that people be able to see him if they really needed to. Before the wake “officially” began the funeral director took anyone who wanted into the room one or two at a time for “viewing”. But at the end a group of a dozen or so decided they had to have a last look. I didn’t wanna leave the room but I didn’t wanna go up there. I just watched them, some on tip toes, peering in at him. All I could see was his baseball cap and a bit of that eagle-like beak of his. I sat scrunched up in a corner by the coats until, mercifully, it was over. They closed the lid and filed out and I just sat there trying to talk to him in a whisper from across the room. But all I could say was “I can’t hear you”. I. Can’t. Hear. You. “'
Michael Louis Wells
New York City
April 29, 2007
"I met Curt the first week I was in New York. My friend Susanne Brinkley (I know) was casting final readings for his playwriting class. She put me in Kate Robin’s play that night and I met him the next morning in his office. He asked what my plans were. I told him I was interviewing with Michael Howard and he told me about Tannersville. The day after that I rang Michael Howard to confirm but Curt had already called to say I was studying with him instead. I think he kinda stole me.
I’m glad he did. I fucking loved him. He said the right thing at the wrong time. His dogs farted during important meetings. He wasn’t impressed with celebrity. Curt was the second person I called, after my Mom, when I heard that my father died. Something happened to me then. It feels a lot like that now.
People fall out of love with EST. They come and go and sometimes come back. Mark Roberts said the best thing about EST is that everybody thinks their era there was its hay day. I think that’s beautiful. But I don’t think that’s how Curt saw it. I think for him it was always in the present. His gift was to bring it all together cross-generational and alive. He brought people together. Not infrequently in vein-popping, messianic rage convinced he was doing it all wrong. It became a ritual that every few years some terribly earnest, disgruntled faction would rise to “save” the theatre from Curt. He outlasted nearly every insurrection but the cumulative effect allowed a narrative to emerge that the theatre was in constant crisis, forever teetering on the brink of financial ruin. No one wanted to take the theatre away from him it was assured, only the purse strings.
He lost his voice. Literally. There was this weird thing going on with his throat. The last class of interns thought it was his real voice because they’d never heard anything different. If you asked him about it he’d huskily whisper that it was getting better. But it fucking wasn’t. If the phone was ringing or somebody was talking in the lobby you couldn’t hear him. After the gypsy for “C” I had to kneel with my notebook on my leg and my ear next to his face to get his notes. The first thing he said was “you can take these or not but I’m right 100 percent of the time.”
At the end of his wake there was a movement to open his coffin. It was a closed casket but the whole reason he hadn’t been cremated immediately was because some thought it important that people be able to see him if they really needed to. Before the wake “officially” began the funeral director took anyone who wanted into the room one or two at a time for “viewing”. But at the end a group of a dozen or so decided they had to have a last look. I didn’t wanna leave the room but I didn’t wanna go up there. I just watched them, some on tip toes, peering in at him. All I could see was his baseball cap and a bit of that eagle-like beak of his. I sat scrunched up in a corner by the coats until, mercifully, it was over. They closed the lid and filed out and I just sat there trying to talk to him in a whisper from across the room. But all I could say was “I can’t hear you”. I. Can’t. Hear. You. “'
Michael Louis Wells
New York City
April 29, 2007
January 13 - January 13, 2009
Excerpt from REAL REAL GONE (published by Smith & Kraus, c. by the author):
MITCHELL(beat); Oh, I brought ya one.
KARL: A relic?
MITCHELL: Yeah. Looking for the flask this morning I found it.
KARL: Uh-huh.
MITCHELL: And I remember that morning when he… when Dad…
KARL: Passed.
MITCHELL: When I got the call, yeah. I flew right out. I get there. Everybody’s milling around like some old episode of "Columbo". I need to be alone.
KARL: Right.
MITCHELL: I go upstairs and hide out in his room. I start lookin’ at stuff. It hasn’t hit me yet.
KARL: What stuff?
MITCHELL: Just all his stuff I’m lookin’ at. And slung over a chair is this checkered shirt he liked to wear. It still smelled like him. I never thoughta that before – how he smelled. I felt somethin’ up here in the chest pocket. It was one of those little crossword puzzles. I looked at it… and I just completely lost it sitting there on his bed.
KARL: Crossword puzzle?
MITCHELL: Yeah, he was like a maniac for crossword puzzles. My Mom hadta ban ‘em. When he got re-married, Mary-Maria started buyin’ him like crossword everything. Placemats, toilet paper, calendars… And that’s what this was. Is. One of those little calendar crosswords.
(Mitchell has pulled the crossword out of his pocket. He hands it to Karl who studies it reverently. )
KARL: Wow.
(Suddenly restless, Mitchell wanders the graveyard, calling over his shoulder.)
MITCHELL: It musta been a hard one, too. ‘Cause it was from Labour Day. And it’s all filled in. It’s done. Yeah…
MITCHELL(beat); Oh, I brought ya one.
KARL: A relic?
MITCHELL: Yeah. Looking for the flask this morning I found it.
KARL: Uh-huh.
MITCHELL: And I remember that morning when he… when Dad…
KARL: Passed.
MITCHELL: When I got the call, yeah. I flew right out. I get there. Everybody’s milling around like some old episode of "Columbo". I need to be alone.
KARL: Right.
MITCHELL: I go upstairs and hide out in his room. I start lookin’ at stuff. It hasn’t hit me yet.
KARL: What stuff?
MITCHELL: Just all his stuff I’m lookin’ at. And slung over a chair is this checkered shirt he liked to wear. It still smelled like him. I never thoughta that before – how he smelled. I felt somethin’ up here in the chest pocket. It was one of those little crossword puzzles. I looked at it… and I just completely lost it sitting there on his bed.
KARL: Crossword puzzle?
MITCHELL: Yeah, he was like a maniac for crossword puzzles. My Mom hadta ban ‘em. When he got re-married, Mary-Maria started buyin’ him like crossword everything. Placemats, toilet paper, calendars… And that’s what this was. Is. One of those little calendar crosswords.
(Mitchell has pulled the crossword out of his pocket. He hands it to Karl who studies it reverently. )
KARL: Wow.
(Suddenly restless, Mitchell wanders the graveyard, calling over his shoulder.)
MITCHELL: It musta been a hard one, too. ‘Cause it was from Labour Day. And it’s all filled in. It’s done. Yeah…
M.A.F. single - January 3, 2009
Michael played lead guitar, produced, mixed and engineered two new tracks - "Not At All" and "December" - for LA indie rocker M.A.F. last month at his home studio in Hell's Kitchen. Further work on an album is expected to continue in LA early this year with a digital release TBA.