Michael Yawney

Michael Yawney

Michael Yawney is a Miami-based playwright and director. In 2020, Gablestage commissioned his collaborative video-play INTIMATE/INTERNET. In 2015, Miami Light Project’s Here & Now festival commissioned EXILE JESUS STARBUCKS based on the life of a Iranian artist. Other commissions include THE HISTORICAL Y2K TOUR for Project [Theater] and short works for Thinking Cap Theater and the One-Minute Play Festival....
Michael Yawney is a Miami-based playwright and director. In 2020, Gablestage commissioned his collaborative video-play INTIMATE/INTERNET. In 2015, Miami Light Project’s Here & Now festival commissioned EXILE JESUS STARBUCKS based on the life of a Iranian artist. Other commissions include THE HISTORICAL Y2K TOUR for Project [Theater] and short works for Thinking Cap Theater and the One-Minute Play Festival.

1,000 HOMOSEXUALS was developed at New York Stage and Film, premiering at the Arsht Center. The play was about Anita Bryant’s fight against gay rights and its impact on Miami.

He founded Florida International University’s play development program The Greenhouse. He is now entering his second residency Miami-Dade Cultural Affairs’ Playwright Development Program.

As a director, Yawney has brought many new works to the stage including Rudi Goblen’s FITO at the Bard Biennial, PET at Miami Light Project, as well as Heather Woodbury’s 12-hour stand-up novel AS THE GLOBE WARMS, at Austin’s Vortex Rep and L.A.’s Redcat.

Yawney holds a BFA from the Experimental Theater Wing of New York University and an MFA in Directing from Columbia University. He teaches Playwriting and Directing at Florida International University. His book GAY ASTROLOY was published by Hachette.

Plays

  • Rough Assembly by Michael Yawney
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    4
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    Genre: biography, comedy + 3 more
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    Keyword: auteur filmmaking, classic film + 3 more
    Genre: biography, comedy, docudrama/historic, drama, period
    Keyword: auteur filmmaking, classic film, critics, adult children living with parents, artist
    Film critic Pauline Kael finds Robert Altman on her doorstep with a duffle bag containing a rough assembly of his film Nashville. He wants Pauline to help him stop studio executives from releasing their own edit. To help him, Pauline skips her adult daughter Brenda’s dance performance. This small betrayal forces Pauline and Robert to reconsider the ways in which each pushed their children aside while making a...
    Film critic Pauline Kael finds Robert Altman on her doorstep with a duffle bag containing a rough assembly of his film Nashville. He wants Pauline to help him stop studio executives from releasing their own edit. To help him, Pauline skips her adult daughter Brenda’s dance performance. This small betrayal forces Pauline and Robert to reconsider the ways in which each pushed their children aside while making a choice that can bring their careers to a new heights.
  • Ru-Howzi! by Michael Yawney
    Cast: 
    4
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    Genre: biography, comedy + 4 more
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    Keyword: iranian revolution, middle eastern artist + 3 more
    Genre: biography, comedy, dark comedy, docudrama/historic, drama, movement/physical
    Keyword: iranian revolution, middle eastern artist, artistic creation, queer culture, alternate Christianity
    Iranian artist, Assurbanipal Babilla, flees Tehran after the revolution because his sexually liberated Christianity is no longer welcome. In Paris and New York, he struggles to create as he finds his sexually liberated Christianity is unwelcome anywhere.
  • A Real Mother by Michael Yawney
    Cast: 
    2
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    Genre: dark comedy, drama + 1 more
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    Keyword: adoption reunion, revenge + 1 more
    Genre: dark comedy, drama, melodrama
    Keyword: adoption reunion, revenge, parent-child relationship
    An adopted son seeks out his birth mother to punish her for giving him up. His adoptive mother role plays with him to prepare him for his revenge fantasy becoming real. But her fantasies begin to overpower his.
  • Angela Lansbury: a philosophy by Michael Yawney
    Cast: 
    3
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    Genre: comedy, satire
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    Keyword: musicals, bootlegs + 1 more
    Genre: comedy, satire
    Keyword: musicals, bootlegs, Shakespeare
    Three interlocking scenes about the people who want to make a show last forever.

    The Preservationist bootlegged Broadway musicals for decades--until he was banned from theaters. He has a date to acquire a rare Lansbury bootleg from an young Lincoln Center Library archivist. However, at the same time there is a reception for a Daveed Diggs hungry for bromance.

    Back in 1601,...
    Three interlocking scenes about the people who want to make a show last forever.

    The Preservationist bootlegged Broadway musicals for decades--until he was banned from theaters. He has a date to acquire a rare Lansbury bootleg from an young Lincoln Center Library archivist. However, at the same time there is a reception for a Daveed Diggs hungry for bromance.

    Back in 1601, Shakespeare pounces on a man surreptitiously writing down the text at a performance of Hamlet. This is Elizabethan bootlegging.

    Back to today, Darlie, a young cabaret singer must choose between 75-seat New York cabarets and directing middle school productions of A Chorus Line.

    Back in 1601, Shakespeare pounces on a man surreptitiously writing down the text at a performance of Hamlet. This is Elizabethan bootlegging. Shakespeare offers sex to burn the papers, and keep his play ephemeral. The Playgoer wants a trophy of both the performance and the sex.

    Back to today, Larry is a music director for Darl, a young cabaret singer choosing between his low-level NYC career and marriage in Ft. Lauderdale. He tries to persuade him to build a life outside of 75 -seat cabarets and bootlegs, but he feels Ft. Lauderdale equals defeat.