BIO
Michael Higgins is a Chicago playwright whose comedy, LAUNCH DAY (LOVE STORIES FROM THE YEAR 2108), received a staged reading in July at the Capital Stage Playwrights’ Revolution festival in Sacramento. The play – about six couples dealing with major life issues 90 years in the future – was also read in September at Chicago Dramatists.
Three of Michael’s short plays – THE CHIP, THE PANDAROO and READY, AIM – will be performed on November 11-12 at Otherworld Theatre’s Paragon Play Festival in Chicago.
THE CHIP was also produced in September at The Navigators' Lift-Off New Play Series in Brooklyn, New York. THE PANDAROO was performed in 2106 at The Artistic Home's Cut To The Chase festival in Chicago.
A former legal-affairs journalist, Michael often writes about unscrupulous characters, as well as decent people facing strange ethical conundrums.
His sci-fi comedy HORRIBLE WEAPONS OF THE FUTURE – about a young genius forced to build the ultimate weapon – was a finalist for The Navigators' 2017 Lift-Off New Play Series and a semifinalist in Sanguine Theatre Company’s 2017 Project Playwright Festival. It was also one of five scripts selected by Independent Filmmaker Project Chicago to be part of their 2015 Screenwriters Workshop.
Michael's full-length comedy YOU MUST ACT NOW – about a TV infomercial kingpin clawing his way back to the top – was a semifinalist in Dayton Playhouse’s 2016 FutureFest and The Road Theatre Company’s 2016 Summer Playwrights Festival.
Four of his full-length plays – LAUNCH DAY, YOU MUST ACT NOW, HORRIBLE WEAPONS OF THE FUTURE and SUPER WINNING MADE EASY – received staged readings at Chicago Dramatists from 2014 to 2017. Michael’s short play, Hippo, was performed in 2014 at the Trellis One-Word, One-Page, One-Year Anniversary Festival at Greenhouse Theater in Chicago. His 10-minute comedies FITNESS BLOW 6000 and WHEN KILLER ANIMALS GO NUTS have been produced at The Second City Training Center.
A Cleveland-area native, Michael has worked as a garbage collector, sewer cleaner and assistant to the guy who scrapes roadkill off the highway. As an award-winning reporter for the Chicago Tribune, he wrote hundreds of articles about major Chicago trials, legal disputes and political scandals.
See more of Michael's work on his profile page at the National New Play Network's New Play Exchange.