A playwright, theatre artist, and poet, Robert Michael Oliver has worked for over 30 years combining artistic collaboration with cultural diversity to bring new and thought-provoking works of literature and performance to metropolitan Washington, DC.
In 1984, Michael co-founded The Sanctuary Theatre with Elizabeth Bruce and Jill Navarre and served as its Artistic Director throughout the 1980s. The theatre introduced DC audiences to works by such renowned international artists as Enrique Buenaventura (The Orgy), David Hare (Fanschen), and Tawfiq al Hakim (The Tree Climber). Sanctuary also produced two workshop productions of his original works, Sheepeaters with Mphela Magoba and an adaptation of George MacDonald's The Wise Woman, with Elizabeth Bruce.
In 2010, he founded The Performing...
A playwright, theatre artist, and poet, Robert Michael Oliver has worked for over 30 years combining artistic collaboration with cultural diversity to bring new and thought-provoking works of literature and performance to metropolitan Washington, DC.
In 1984, Michael co-founded The Sanctuary Theatre with Elizabeth Bruce and Jill Navarre and served as its Artistic Director throughout the 1980s. The theatre introduced DC audiences to works by such renowned international artists as Enrique Buenaventura (The Orgy), David Hare (Fanschen), and Tawfiq al Hakim (The Tree Climber). Sanctuary also produced two workshop productions of his original works, Sheepeaters with Mphela Magoba and an adaptation of George MacDonald's The Wise Woman, with Elizabeth Bruce.
In 2010, he founded The Performing Knowledge Project, Finding Narrative in Knowledge, Giving Voice to Words. For The Project Michael wrote and performed "Embodying Poe" and created and performed "Song of Myself: The WHITMAN Project" for Capital Fringe Festivals.
Oliver has had numerous public readings of his works done locally through The Playwright's Forum: The Greatest Generation in 2010, Images from a Darkened Classroom in 2011, The Prison Boy in 2013, and Starve the Beast in 2014. The Forum presented a reading of Epiphanies by Midnight in July 2015.