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Michael Downend

MICHAEL DOWNEND

  
Nationality:    USA
email:    Click here to contact     Website:    Click here

Literary Agent:    n/a

Michael Downend is a novelist, scriptwriter, and actor for stage, television and film including narrations and voice-overs. Studied with screenwriter Eleanor Perry (THE SWIMMER, DIARY OF A MAD HOUSEWIFE). Although he's played serious roles onstage he's best known or perhaps infamous for playing JORN in THE ROBOT HOLOCAUST featured on Comedy Central and later in the first season of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 (MST3K). MGM bought TRH for its permanent library. Member: The Authors Guild, Dramatists Guild, PEN, and The Playwrights' Center. Also writes as Liam Tracey. Michael is featured in SO FAR, SO CLOSE, a book about American writers for universities in South America published in 2014. Former US Marine. Also attended British Royal Marine Commando School. Honorary member Buckingham Palace Guard. Lives in Alexandria, Virginia and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. His TV mystery series in progress, WORLDLY GOODS, features Detective Inspector Henry Gargan, a morose Irish-American policeman in love with Molly, a lawyer who tries constantly to get her work-obsessed police officer lover to relax a bit and stop taking murder on his watch as a personal affront. Writer/narrator of award-winning PBS documentary, A JOURNEY TO THE ENDLESS MOUNTAINS, Frank Lloyd Wright FALLING WATER and other programs. MIN, his play for radio, broadcast on NPR, is the first in a series about women-ordinary and heroic-commissioned by public radio. AN AMERICAN WIFE (Heartland Plays), a stage play written in collaboration with his late wife, novelist, playwright and poet, Karen Blomain, premiered with an Equity production to sold-out performances at The Electric Theatre Company directed by David Zarko. Nora Hussey produced and directed AN AMERICAN WIFE in Boston in spring 2012. Recipient of Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Playwriting Fellowships and a Rockefeller Grant for his play, THE MOLA MOLA FISH. Among his other plays are SWIMS AND LOVES TO DANCE, THE HOUSE ON BUFFALO STREET, AREN't YOU BONNIE BEDELIA, THE LIGHT FROM DISTant OBJECTS, THE WATERSHOPS POND, GOING OUT NOISY, THE PLOVERS, THE COVERT MOTEL, MERCY STREET, THE OLD FOLKS AT HOME, OCCOQUAN, THE HAZARD, SYLVAN BEACH, HIGH THIN CIRRUS (Also directed by David Zarko sold out in New York), WOMAN AT THE HOCKNEY EXHIBITION, HONEY, VALLARTA THE MUSICAL, RATTLESNAKE ROUNDUP, CITY AND STATE, and THE PIG KILLERS. MIN, his play for radio about Min Lurye Matheson who helped found the ILGWU, is being developed as a full-length script. His poetry has been published by the University of Chicago Press, the Endless Mountains review and others. Downend has also produced book covers (including the cover art for THE SEASON OF LOST CHILDREN, Karen Blomain's novel), one-man and group shows. Honored for photo and narrative coverage of the March for Soviet Jewry in Washington, DC.

Research:    Member of the Dramatists Guild of America (as at 2015)

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below is a list of Michael Downend's plays - click on a Play Title for more information

         American Wife, An         Aren't You Bonnie Bedelia?         Flight of the Frigates, The         Going Out Noisy         High Thin Cirrus         House on Buffalo Street, The         Light From Distant Objects, the         Plovers, The         Rattlesnake Roundup         Swims and Loves to Dance         Watershops Pond, The         Woman at the Hockney Exhibition
American Wife, An

Synopsis:
An Irish American soldier returns home with a Polish bride. His family give her a mixed reception

Notes:
written by Karen Blomain And Michael Downend

1st Produced:
The Electric Theatre Company    

Organisations:
Wellesley College Theatre

1st Published:
http://heartlandplays.com/   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  5            Other:  -

Further Reference:
https://twitter.com/lemeeg

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Aren't You Bonnie Bedelia?

Synopsis:
Some readers of "People" magazine think they have spotted a star

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Flight of the Frigates, The

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Going Out Noisy

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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High Thin Cirrus

Synopsis:
Old lovers meet in the imagination of one of them as she walks down to the sea

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Westbeth Theatre, New York     2012

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
http://heartlandplays.com/   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Drama

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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House on Buffalo Street, The

Synopsis:
Near the end of World War Two a Polish family is put is a displaced persons camp. Later they are sent to Detroit. They are told there is plenty of work in the car factories

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Light From Distant Objects, the

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Plovers, The

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Rattlesnake Roundup

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Swims and Loves to Dance

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Watershops Pond, The

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Woman at the Hockney Exhibition

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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