Mike Daisey life and biography

Mike Daisey (born 1976) is an American monologist, author, and actor best known for his full-length extemporaneous monologues. Daisey's book 21 Dog Years is an account of life as an Amazon.com employee. Since that time he has prepared and performed extemporaneous monologues about Nikola Tesla, L. Ron Hubbard, Steve Jobs and Apple's supply chain in China, the Department of Homeland Security, the history of the New York transit system, 9/11, the inventor of the neutron bomb, Wal-Mart and a variety of other topics.

Mike Daisey has been called “the master storyteller” and “one of the finest solo performers of his generation” by the New York Times for his groundbreaking monologues which weave together autobiography, gonzo journalism, and unscripted performance to tell hilarious and heartbreaking stories that cut to the bone, exposing secret histories and unexpected connections. His latest work, The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, was called “the best new play of the year” by the Washington Post, and was recognized as one of the year’s best theater pieces by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Seattle Times, Seattle Weekly, San Jose Mercury News, the San Francisco Bay Guardian, and will return to the Public Theater in 2012.

Since his first monologue in 1997, Daisey has created over fifteen monologues, including the critically-acclaimed The Last Cargo Cult, the controversial How Theater Failed America, the twenty-four-hour feat All the Hours in the Day, the unrepeatable series All Stories Are Fiction, the four-part epic Great Men of Genius, and the international sensation 21 Dog Years. Other titles include If You See Something Say Something, Barring the Unforeseen, Invincible Summer, Monopoly!, Tongues Will Wag, I Miss the Cold War, and Teching in India.

He has performed in venues on five continents, ranging from Off-Broadway at the Public Theater to remote islands in the South Pacific, from the Sydney Opera House to an abandoned theater in post-Communist Tajikistan. A partial list: Cherry Lane Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Victory Gardens, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Barrow Street Theatre, American Repertory Theatre, the Spoleto Festival, Yale Repertory Theatre, Center Theatre Group, Intiman Theatre, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, ACT Theatre, Performance Space 122, the Noorderzon Festival, the T:BA Festival, the Under the Radar Festival, the Flynn Theatre, the Lensic, and Chicago’s Museum for Contemporary Art.

He’s been a guest on the Late Show with David Letterman, as well as a commentator and contributor to the New York Times, This American Life, WIRED, Vanity Fair, Slate, Salon, NPR and the BBC. His first film, Layover, was shown at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010, and a feature film of his monologue If You See Something Say Something is currently in post-production. His second book, Rough Magic, a collection of his monologues, will be published in 2012. He has been nominated for the Outer Critics Circle Award, two Drama League Awards, and is the recipient of the Bay Area Critics Circle Award, five Seattle Times Footlight Awards, the Sloan Foundation’s Galileo Prize, and a MacDowell Fellowship. He lives in Brooklyn with his collaborator and partner Jean-Michele Gregory.

Daisey is married to his director and collaborator, Jean-Michele Gregory; they reside in New York City.

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