J. Michaels (AEA, SSDC, PSC-CUNY, AFSCME)

Appearance Off-Broadway include Mercury Theatre's War of the Worlds (Orson Welles); title roles in Faustus, Volpone, Julius Caesar (Off-Off Broadway Review Award winner), as well as portrayals of Shylock (The Merchant of Venice), Scrooge (A Christmas Carol), The Major-General (Pirates of Penzance) Friar Lawrence (Romeo & Juliet), Henry (The Fantasticks), Rosencrantz AND Guildenstern (Hamlet). He created leading roles in Tartuffe, the musical at the John Jay Theatre; In The Rain for the ATHE New Works Series at the Marriott Marquis' Starlight Theatre; and will return to the role of Michael Kessler-45 (a role he created at The Dramatists Guild) in The Wisdom That Men Seek this August for the Fringe Festival. Film/TV: a deadbeat dad in Twelve Fingers; a horny hunchback in L'elisir d'amore ; a nerd with a secret in Myron; a nervous DA in Taking the Stand; a cursed corporate exec who becomes an insect in Norman: A Modern Metamorphosis; and Dr. Samuel Mudd in Footsteps of the Civil War. Other film appearances include Keeping the Faith and Duane Incarnate. He adds video games to his list as the voice of Shadrack in King's Quest X (out this fall). A director and producer of classical works, his credits include Hamlet, Macbeth, Richard III, Oedipus Rex, Suor Angelica, A Yorkshire Tragedy, Othello, The Spanish Tragedy, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest, The Bacchae, Il Tabarro, The Merchant of Venice, The Taming of the Shrew, Dr. Faustus, and Romeo & Juliet.

Behind the scenes, he served on staff for Broadway's Cats, Damn Yankees, Guys & Dolls, Big, the first Les Miz, the national tour of Edwin Drood, and a Town Hall showing of The Vagina Monologues ; he wrote the book and additional lyrics for Critic, a musical (winner, ASCAP Award); served as a speech writer for several international organizations writing prose for Hilary Clinton, Fran & Barry Weissler, James Earl Jones, Tom Freston, Clive Davis, Rocco Landesman, Tommy Mattola, Joe Torre, and Gerald Schoenfeld; as well as reporting ringside at Madison Square Garden for The Golden Gloves; he produced the 1997 season of None of the Above Theatre, and in 1998, he and Mary MiCari turned an arts program at The Educational Alliance into Genesis Repertory.He now serves as artistic director and executive producer of the organization. He was recognized in the SSDC National Quarterly, TheatreWorld, and Crain's Who's Who.

He is a theatre/media professor and has lectured or presented workshops for the College Now Program and the Performing Arts Society at Kingsborough College, the annual arts festivals of Yeshiva University and Lehman College, the Mimes & Mummers of Fordham University, the arts programs of Goldstein H.S. and Columbus H.S. as well as the membership of Narrows Community Theatre College and Project R.E.A.C.T. J Michaels is also the curator of a pop-culture exhibition entitled ComixCulture.