#michael mckeever

ROGER CLARK as Simon Gardner in:

South Beach Babylon • By Michael McKeever • Directed by Kate Alexander

Avaryana Rose Joins The Cast Of Bitter Souls. Get all the latest info here #AvaryanaRose #BitterSouls #Horror #Movie #Inproduction @joyHorror @AvaryanaRose

Avaryana Rose joins BITTER SOULS, A Terrifying Tale of Voodoo, Resurrection and Vengeance. A teenage love story in the Southern Gothic tradition exploring Black Magic and the sweet taste of Damnation.  Starring Avaryana Rose and Michael McKeever. From Showtown American Pictures and Producers McKeever, Oifer, McCallum and Sarullo.  The Producers of Gibtown Florida Werewolf Feature THE BEAST…

‘Daniel’s Husband’: A Persuasive Polemic for Marriage

Bill Brochtrup, Tim Cummings, Jose Fernando and Ed Martin / Ed Krieger

[dc]M[/dc]ichael McKeever’s insistently moving play Daniel’s Husband, which premiered in Florida in 2015 before going on to successful off-Broadway runs in New York City in 2017 and again in 2018, as well as a 2017 San Francisco production, has landed in L.A. It’s about the necessity of marriage (and not just of the…

#frontmezzjunkies Revisits @Daniels_Husband by #MichaelMcKeever directed by #JoeBrancato @Joebrancato3 w/ @MatthewMontel @ryan_spahn @louliberatore @annaholbrook @LelandAlexander #DanielsHusband

Lou Liberatore, Ryan Spahn (seated), Matthew Montelongo, Leland Wheeler. Photo: Carol Rosegg The Review: Daniel’s Husband

By Ross

I first went to see Daniel’s Husband when it played at The Cherry Lane Theatre, and all I could utter when it was all over to my fellow theatre junkie, Steve, who was oddly more devastated than I was, a very uncommon moment for the both of us, was that “I wasn’t…

Theater review: Daniel's Husband | Time Out New York

There's a pervasive sense of soapboxing to Daniel's Husband, Michael McKeever's relationship dramedy receiving its New York premiere from Primary Stages. The play centers on Daniel (Ryan Spahn) and Mitchell (Matthew Montelongo), a longtime couple who seem to have the perfect life. Daniel's an architect and Mitchell's a successful author; they live in a beautifully appointed home (props to designer Brian Prather) where they throw breezy dinner parties for their circle of friends. Naturally, there's trouble in paradise. Daniel wants the two to tie the knot, and Mitchell doesn't believe in marriage—or rather, in the idea that gay men should aspire to heterosexual relationship norms. It's a debate certainly ripe for dramatization, and one whose primacy McKeever puts front and center from the get-go. "Oh God, please! No more politics," Mitchell's friend (Lou Liberatore) cries in the opening moments. But the playwright's point is clear: If you're a member of a minority that's subject to the machinations of the majority, the personal is always political—whether you want it to be or not.

  (Photo Courtesy of the Adrienne Arsht Center/Photo by RAHAUS- Justin Namon)

By Rafa Carvajal

On Saturday, I went to see the truly hysterical Hollywood satire Clark Gable Slept Here, by multiple Carbonell Award-winning playwright and Zoetic Stage co-founder Michael McKeever, at the Carnival Studio Theater in the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts. It was hilarious. I loved it!

This comedic theatrical performance was made possible with the support of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation as part of its Knight Arts Challenge, and directed by Zoetic Stage artistic director and Silver Palm Award winner Stuart Meltzer. Its stars, Carbonell Award winners Michael McKeever and Lela Elam, multiple nominee Clay Cartland, and Vanessa Elise and Robert Johnston did a superb job acting out a plot that involves a silver screen leading male star being at the Golden Globe Awards ceremony while his staff comes up with a solution to finding a dead male prostitute on the floor of his penthouse suite in the posh Chateau Marmont. I particularly loved the over-the-top personalities of Morgan Wright (Lela Elam) and Jarrod “Hilly” Hilliard (Michael McKeever).

I sat down with Michael, winner of Best Actor at Monday’s 38th annual Carbonell Awards, to learn more about his love of acting and playwriting.

Rafa Carvajal: When and how did you first get involved in theater?

Michael McKeever: I had a pretty late start. I didn’t write my first play until I was 30 years old. Up until then, I worked as an art director for film and television. I was writing commercials and had a good ear for dialogue, so I figured, “What the hell? I’ll try my hand at playwriting.” I was very lucky. My first play got picked up within a year. The rest is history.

RC: What made you start playwriting?

MM: I’ve always loved the theater. I love the immediacy of it – the fact that each and every performance is unique. There’s something magical about live performances. I’ve always been drawn to that.

RC: Tell us about your involvement with Zoetic Stage as one of its co-founders.

MM: Not only am I one of the resident playwrights at Zoetic Stage, I’m also the director of marketing. Because there are only a handful of us, each of us wears many hats. It’s one of the joys and headaches of having your own theater company.

RC: To you, what makes a good screenplay?

MM: Conflict. A great arc. Interesting, sexy, complex characters we care about. And more conflict.

RC: How do you make a screenplay so hysterical?

MM: You bring whatever humor you have in your own arsenal, and then collaborate with really funny, really smart people and let yourself be open to their input.

RC: How does living in Miami influence your work?

MM: I’ve lived in Miami all my life. I love everything about it. There’s a specific rhythm that Miami has, a certain flavor. You can feel it in the air. It’s fast and sexy and dangerous and sexy and funny and sexy and impatient and sexy and… well, you get it.

RC: What inspired you to write a Hollywood satire?

MM: I’ve always loved the glamour of Old Hollywood. I love the rhythms of the dialogues of those old black and white films of the '30s and '40s. I wanted to apply them to a very modern, very “now” story. That’s how Clark Gable Slept Here was born.

RC: Describe Clark Gable Slept Here to Wire Magazine's readers.

MM: As Hollywood’s greatest action star charms his way through the Golden Globes Awards ceremony with his gorgeous Hollywood wife, his staff tries to figure out what to do with the dead male prostitute he’s left on the floor of his suite at the Chateau Marmont. It’s a black comedy of what defines a ”man” in modern Hollywood.

RC: How did Clark Gable Slept Here come about?

MM: I’ve wanted to write this play for a long time. When Zoetic Stage artist director (and my partner) Stuart Meltzer said he wanted a dark, sexy world premiere comedy for this season, I said, “I think I have the play.” I described the story and he loved it. It took me less than two months to write.

RC: There’s a gay theme in Clark Gable Slept Here. How does the play reflect your life and personal views?

MM: I’ve always been fascinated by Hollywood’s ridiculous fear of “coming out,” considering that Hollywood is mostly run by gay men and women. I wanted to write a comic play that showed the extremes that people in power are willing to go to keep their stars in the closet.

RC: How does Clark Gable Slept Here compare to your other works?

MM: It’s darker and edgier and sexier. Which, of course, makes it one of my favorites.

RC: Not only are you a playwright, but also an actor, and you’re starring in your own play! Did you create this character, Jarrod Hilliard, with the intention of playing him?

MM: Somewhere in the early stages of writing the script, I realized that Hilly was a character I could play. His rhythms and style were something that fit me well, so I started writing him with me in mind. Plus, I get to wear a nice tux on stage, which always makes me happy.

RC: What do you enjoy the most about acting?

MM: Playing dress up and being other people.

RC: What do you want your audience to walk away with when the curtain closes?

MM: That we as a society are evolving. Just not fast enough. I also want them to have had a really good time.

RC: Is there anything else you would like to share with Wire Magazine readers?

MM: Live theater is alive and well in South Florida. I’m not talking about the umpteenth revival of Hello Dolly! But, rather, new and vital plays being written by interesting new voices. And it’s starting here! I find that very exciting. I wish more Miamians would venture out and discover it for themselves.

Through April 6, 2014 Carnival Studio Theater in the Ziff Ballet Opera House Arsht Center for the Performing Arts

Note: the events in this story are true to the best of my knowledge, but are formed of the memories of my childhood, so some details may be different than I remember them.

Other than for reasons of college or employment I’ve never really lived in a big city. At the moment I live in what I suppose one could call a small city although the tallest building in town is only three stories. But I have lived in small towns, the kind of place where nobody cares much who said what on David Letterman last night. But they brag when somebody in the family wins a 4-H red ribbon at the county fair. And when the town fire engine passes in the 4th of July Parade they cheer just as if they’ve never seen it before.

Which brings me to Wrangler Dave who was the head wrangler at a ranch near my house (which is why everyone called him [all together now] Wrangler Dave). When it came to city people he was what you could call prejudiced. He didn’t so much pronounce the words “city people” as much let them fall from his lips to the dust where they wriggled like worms and died. He particularly didn’t like Sunday picnickers whom he placed on the evolutionary scale somewhere between salamanders and sodbusters.

One day I hitched a ride with him in his dusty battered pickup into town. We passed a family pulled over next to a pasture and its wooden fence. They had a couple of small kids: one straddling the fence; the other already over it. Mom was peering at them through a camera.

Dave stopped and rolled down his window. I expected him to bark at them but his voice was surprisingly gentle. “You folks are welcome here,” he said, “but you might want to bring the kids back over to this side of the fence. We got a big ole’ bull who kinda figures that pasture is his.”

The family looked at us with great wide eyes. Dave touched the brim of his hat to them and with a lurch we drove away. “Now Dave,” I said, “you know there’s no bull in that pasture.”

He looked thoughtfully through the windshield. “Ya reckon so?”

“I know so and so do you.”

He looked appropriately remorseful. “I reckon you’re right…suppose we ought a go back an’ tell ‘em?”

I looked through the rear window. The father was yanking the kids back over the fence while his wife watched out for the “bull.”

“Nope,” I said, “It’s too late.” Sometimes I think even the most canny Wall Street banker could learn a thing or two from Wrangler Dave. He was also something of a philosopher. One afternoon I returned from a travel writing assignment to find him sitting on his customary hay bale. He handed me a cold longneck beer bottle.

“Heard tell you went to some big city back east,” he said. “How’d you like it?”

“Didn’t,” I said. “Glad to be back.”

There was a moment’s silence, and then the sound of a couple of beer bottles being opened. Out in a nearby pasture a colt gamboled, kicking up puffs of dust with it hooves. Dave nodded approvingly. “Yep,” he said.

Which about summed it up.