Little Known Facts with Ilana Levine - Episode 303 - Michael R. Jackson

Episode 303 - Michael R. Jackson

06/27/22 • 48 min

1 Listener

Michael R. Jackson wrote the book, music and lyrics for the 2022 Tony Award winner for Best New Musical- A Strange Loop. He won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize and New York Drama Critics’ Circle–winning A Strange Loop (which had its 2019 world premiere at Playwrights Horizons in association with Page 73 Productions) was called “a full-on laparoscopy of the heart, soul, and loins” and a “gutsy, jubilantly anguished musical with infectious melodies” by Ben Brantley for The New York Times. In The New Yorker, Vinson Cunningham wrote, “To watch this show is to enter, by some urgent, bawdy magic, an ecstatic and infinitely more colorful version of the famous surreal lithograph by M. C. Escher: the hand that lifts from the page, becoming almost real, then draws another hand, which returns the favor.” In addition to A Strange Loop, he wrote book, music, and lyrics for White Girl in Danger. Awards and associations include a New Professional Theatre Festival Award, a Jonathan Larson Grant, a Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award, an ASCAP Foundation Harold Adamson Award, a Whiting Award, the Helen Merrill Award for Playwriting, an Outer Critics Circle Award, a Drama Desk Award, an Obie Award, an Antonyo Award, a Fred Ebb Award, a Windham-Campbell Prize, and a Dramatists Guild Fellowship. He is an alum of Page 73’s Interstate 73 Writers Group

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Episode 302 - Deniz Akdeniz

An Australian native, Deniz Akdeniz has quickly made a name for himself through his performances of beloved characters.

Deniz will next be seen reprising his breakout and widely beloved role of ‘Max’ in the upcoming second season of the critically-acclaimed and award-winning HBO Max series THE FLIGHT ATTENDANT alongside Kaley Cuoco and Zosia Mamet, which will be premiering in Spring 2022.

He was most recently seen in the new hit Warner Bros for FOX series ,THE CLEANING LADY, produced by Shay Mitchell. His other recent TV credits include: Freeform’s SIRENS and ABC’s ONCE UPON A TIME where he played the role of ‘Aladdin.

On the film side, Deniz is widely known for his role in I, FRANKENSTEIN, directed by Stuart Beattie. He was also seen in THE WATER DIVINE directed by Russell Crowe, Focus Feature’s THE HIGH NOTE, Netflix’s SIGHTLESS opposite Madelaine Petsch and the Australian box office feature hit, TOMORROW, WHEN THE WAR BEGAN, where he was nominated for an Inside Film Award in the category of “Best Actor.”

Prior to acting, Deniz trained and competed professionally in MMA.

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Episode 305 - Neil Pepe

Neil Pepe is an acclaimed director and has been the Artistic Director of Atlantic Theater Company since 1992. Neil has been a master teacher at the Atlantic Acting School at New York University Tisch School of the Arts and an associate adjunct professor of directing at Columbia University Graduate Film Division. He has been a guest at The O’Neill Playwrights Conference as well as the American Theatre Wing. Neil holds an Honorary Doctorate as well as a BA from Kenyon College in Ohio. He has served on the Board of ART/NY as well as the Selection Committee for Harold and Mimi Steinberg Playwriting Award as well as the Pew Charitable Trust in Philadelphia.

As a director, Neil’s Broadway credits include David Mamet;s American Buffalo, Doug Wright, Trey Anastasio and Amanda Green’s musical Hands on a Hardbody, the acclaimed revival of David Mamet’s Speed-the-Plow, as well as Mamet’s A Life in the Theatre. At the Atlantic, Neil has most recently directed John Guare’s 3 Kinds of Exile, Moira Buffini’s Dying For It, Jez Butterworth’s Parlour Song, Mojo and The Night Heron. Other Off-Broadway and Regional credits include: Ethan Coen’s Happy Hour, Offices and Almost an Evening; Harold Pinter’s Celebration and The Room; Adam Rapp’s Dreams of Flying, Dreams of Falling; David Mamet’s American Buffalo (Donmar Warehouse, Atlantic); Romance, Keep Your Pantheon/School (Center Theatre Group, Atlantic); Zinnie Harris’ Further than the Furthest Thing (Manhattan Theater Club); Jessica Goldberg’s Refuge (Playwrights Horizons); Frank Gilroy’s The Subject Was Roses with Martin Sheen (CTG) and Eric Bogosian’s Red Angel (Williamstown Theater Festival).

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