Michael Parsons has seen his work spread from central Ohio to both coasts of the country, from Alaska to Maine to California and back again.
Parsons' first play, TAKE TWO, a compilation of two thematically related one-act plays, was the inaugural production of the Curtain Players Playwright's Festival in Galena, Ohio in 2003. The festival has since become an annual event, gaining notoriety in the central Ohio area, and Parsons has returned to that festival twice more to debut new plays.
Seeking to take his writing to a new level, Parsons returned to school, attending the Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts (NEOMFA) program for Creative Writing with a focus in playwriting at Kent State University. He is studying under playwright Mike Geither, head of playwriting at Cleveland State University, who was instrumental in bringing forth Michael's continually developing voice.
Parsons co-founded Theatre Daedalus with fellow writers Jaclyn Villano and Jeremy Sony. As the first Artistic Director, Parsons generated Theatre Daedalus' signature show, PROJECT 10, an evening of ten-minute plays written by the three founders over a span of ten weeks. PROJECT 10, produced in both 2008 and 2009, provided a venue for quite a few of Parsons' ten minute plays, several of which have gone on to other festivals, including the Last Frontier Theatre Conference in Valdez, Alaska, Northern Writes Theatre Festival in Bangor, Maine, and the ShowOff! festival in San Juan Capistrano, California, among others. He is also the founder of The Bessemer Project, a consortium of playwrights who are geared to generate and revise new work. Bessemer works have been produced in Cleveland and elsewhere in the two-plus years of their existence.
Parsons' other full-length plays include HOMELAND (2009) selected for staged reading by Meetinghouse Theater Lab in January of 2011; FIRE DANCE (2010), which will be staged at Cleveland Public Theatre in March of 2011. WHITE RUSSIAN (2006) and CHASING OZYMANDIAS (2008) have gone on to multiple productions. In November 2010, Theatre Daedalus presented the World Premiere of his play 29 BELLS, commemorating the 35th anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald. He is currently working on a postmodern adaptation of Beowulf that explores the idea of monsters and monstrosity. The currently untitled project is scheduled to be completed in December of 2010.
Between his theater company in Columbus, writing in Cleveland, and teaching in Kent, Parsons lives a true three-city existence. He currently lives in a car on Interstate 71, where his thoughts turn to dead ethereal women (who represent the perfect unattainable relationship) and the color red. His mail, cats, and clothing articles live in Kent, Columbus, or somewhere in between.
If you need a hi-res copy of Parsons' headshot, please contact us. Headshot by Dale Bush Photography.
Read more about the other resident playwrights of Theatre Daedalus:
