Mike Daisey

Creator/Performer

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 monologues, fourteen and counting, include the controversial How Theater Failed America, the six-hour epic Great Men of Genius, the unrepeatable series All Stories Are Fiction, and the international sensation 21 Dog Years.

Over the past decade he has performed his unique extemporaneous monologues at venues across America and around the world. He’s been a guest on The Late Show with David Letterman, a contributor to WIRED, Slate and Salon, a web contributor to Vanity Fair and Radar Magazine, and his work has been frequently heard on the BBC and NPR. A feature film of his monologue If You See Something Say Something will be released this year, and he stars in the Lawrence Krauser film Horrible Child.

His first book, 21 Dog Years: A Cubedweller’s Tale, was published by the Free Press and he is working on a second book, Great Men of Genius, adapted from his monologues about genius and megalomania in the lives of Bertolt Brecht, P.T. Barnum, NikolaTesla, and L. Ron Hubbard. He has been nominated for the Outer Critics Circle Award, two Drama League Awards, and has been the recipient of the Bay Area Critics Circle Award, three Seattle Times Footlight Awards, and a MacDowell Fellowship. He lives in New York City with his director and collaborator, Jean-Michele Gregory.