News

Chicago – Occasionally we can be surprised through true wonder and serendipity. In August of 2015, John Michael – a Texas native and one-man-show artist – crushed out the funny at the Abbie Hoffman Died for Our Sins theater festival, by making his Chicago debut with “John Michael & the Order of the Penix.” For two consecutive upcoming Saturdays – Dec. 5th and 12th – he returns to the scene of his debut, the Mary-Arrchie Theater at Angel Island in Chicago, to perform the show once again.

The “Order of the Penix” was formulated in Michael’s hometown of Dallas, Texas, in 2013. The show came from the author’s own experience in the dating world, using the elements of Harry Potter – in a side-splitting mix of physical and emotional comedy – to explore both the shame and the stigma of testing for STDs. Michael’s worldview is a hysterical whirlwind, but he also portrays true conflict and feelings in his journey.

Yes This Man, the title of Mike Daisey’s slender new monologue, has a kind of “Ecce Homo” quality to it, and Daisey, declaredly, plays his own Pilate here. As a white male monologist, monologuing about the plight of women, he tries and convicts himself of “the original, Aristotelian version of mansplaining”: The notion of Mike Daisey’s telling women (and men) what’s wrong with the way all societies traditionally and persistently treat women is de facto abominable. (His original title, Yes All Women, was altered after Twitter collectively objected to Daisey’s appropriation of the meme.) How will he pull it off? Offer himself up for dude-ifixion, of course. So we brace for painful confessions and tortured self-critique, from a guy known for both.And we get it. But only kind of. Daisey’s “not a fucking journalist,” he reminds us again, and although it’s fashionable to call him a “fabulist,...

“Lie to us!” my seatmate whispered as the man of the hour took his seat. Up came the Fresnels, down came the hands, and Mike Daisey proceeded to do just that. It was just like old times. Well, not exactly like old times. Daisey, as Daisey points out early and often, has been through some rough chop. His last show, The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, was promoted as groundbreaking theatrical “journalism,” then demoted to mere fraud in a matter of weeks (and over the course of a single, harrowing "This American Life" episode). Afterwards, he was lost, and even considered taking his own life.Doubt that last bit? You’re invited to: It’s what kicks off Daisey’s new show, All the Faces of the Moon, a 29-part, 44-hour, monthlong epic about fiction, fantasy, magic, and, yes. lying. But All the Faces is, above all, about Mike Daisey,...

At the beginning of last year, Mike Daisey was ready to blow up. He had spent years nurturing a certain kind of intense but small-scale acclaim in the theater, performing haranguing, wistful monologues, which he never wrote down, to people who shared his core suspicions about the world — that we’re all ridiculous, that living requires some delusion, and that maybe we’re all just, in our semi-self-aware way, fucked. His critique of the mystical delights of consumer capitalism, The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, was adapted for “This American Life,” which made Daisey’s poly­morphous, principled outrage at last scalable beyond the cabaret. But then it all blew up in his face. The public-radio broadcast was retracted by host Ira Glass, and Daisey’s self-styled profile as a higher-purpose grouser-crusader beaten to hell because he … well, fudged some parts. Misled. Made some stuff up — you know,...

The Public Theater Artistic Director, Oskar Eustis Executive Director, Patrick Willingham announced today that single tickets are now on sale for the Fall 2013 Season, which will begin in September with All The Faces Of The Moon, created and performed by Mike Daisey. Single tickets are available by calling 212 967-7555, www.publictheater.org, or in person at the Taub Box Office at The Public Theater at Astor Place at 425 Lafayette Street.

What sweets do fighter pilots eat? Can pigs' rectums be passed off as squid? These are the sort of questions that have made This American Life an internet sensation. Henry Barnes meets Ira Glass as he comes searching for British stories

Ira Glass is looking for a story. The host of This American Life, the phenomenally successful Us public radio show, has flown into Sheffield for one night. He has come to the city's documentary festival, hoping all the assembled film-makers will pitch him ideas for Tal, which boasts 1.8 million listeners in the Us, and produces a weekly podcast that's downloaded by 900,000 fans worldwide. His first UK appearance doesn't seem to be going too well, though. "I don't feel like people here know who I am," he says.

Tal is all about surprising, character-driven stories. It's an hour-long show divided into acts, each one taking a broad theme. Episode 484, called Doppelgänger,...

Tonight, October 22 at 930 Pm, Mike Daisey will return to Joes Pub at The Public Theater to debut new monologues in the first of a series of monthly premieres through March 2013. Each month, Daisey will bring a new, groundbreaking monologue to Joes Pub for a one-night-only engagement. In October, Daisey will premiere American Utopias. Tickets are 20 reserved 25 premium and go on sale today, httpjoespub.com.

On Monday, October 22 at 930 Pm, Mike Daisey will return to Joes Pub at The Public Theater to debut new monologues in the first of a series of monthly premieres through March 2013. Each month, Daisey will bring a new, groundbreaking monologue to Joes Pub for a one-night-only engagement. In October, Daisey will premiere American Utopias. Tickets are 20 reserved 25 premium and go on sale today, httpjoespub.com.

This year’s New York International Fringe Festival boasts roughly 200 shows, all of which are hoping that the festival might be the beginning of a longer life onstage. And their aspirations are not unwarranted. Quite a few FringeNYC graduates have gone on to achieve further success, both on the New York stage and around the country, not to mention launching the careers of some very talented artists.Here are a few Fringe alumni that have gone on to bigger things!“21 Dog Years”Long before achieving infamy with “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs,” monologist Mike Daisey achieved fame with “21 Dog Years.” By now it feels like a period piece. Daisey, an Amazon.com employee, reflects on the turn-of-the-last-century tech boom and bust. Daisey’s show was more than just a rant or a cautionary tale. It was fast-paced comic exploration of just how easy it is for the idea of easy.

It’s the end of an era: Click and Clack are retiring.

The duo, real names Tom and Ray Magliozzi, have hosted the program Car Talk on NPR for the past 25 years. According to a transcript from their website,

Tom: …with Car Talk celebrating its 25th anniversary on NPR this fall (35th year overall, including our local years at Wbur)…

Ray: …and my brother turning over the birthday odometer to 75, we’ve decided that it’s time to stop and smell the cappuccino.

Tom: So as of October, we’re not going to be recording any more new shows. That’s right,...

The Newsies took Broadway this week at the show’s Thursday night opening, and if our review is any indication, they’re truly the Kings of New York! EW also got an exclusive video from inside the recording studio with the stellar cast. Over at the Broadway Theatre, Raven-Symone stepped into the bedazzled heels of Deloris van Cartier in Sister Act on Tuesday, and EW caught up with her for a Q&A that’s fabulous, baby. We also offered up a first look at Jamie Lynn-Sigler and Rita Wilson in Off Broadway’s Jewtopia, Deborah Cox joined Jekyll and Hyde,...

R&B singer Deborah Cox will star alongside Tony nominee Constantine Maroulis (Rock of Ages) in Frank Wildhorn and Steve Cuden’s new production of the musical Jekyll & Hyde. Cox, playing Lucy, and Maroulis, as Dr. Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde, will make their way to Broadway for a limited engagement in April 2013 following a 25-week national tour launching this October.

Jekyll & Hyde is the story of a London doctor who accidentally unleashes his evil alternate personality while trying to cure his father’s mental illness. It first opened on Broadway in April 1997, with Linda Eder as Lucy and Robert Cuccioli...

Before the curtain falls on the 15 minutes of ridiculousness that is the distressing dilemma of Mike Daisey, there is one more act: Daisey’s latest apology, which in reality should have been given eons ago and saved face for Daisey, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company and everyone involved in the Apple factory farce.

Daisey once again took to his blog for his most recent apology, only this time the playwright-slash-performer decided to abandon trying to explain his good intentions and instead took full blame for the debacle.

He apologized first to his audiences: “It made me grateful…to have audiences come...

After a public shaming and "This American Life" retraction, Mike Daisey has written an extensive mea culpa that apologizes to the journalists, theater-goers, activists and colleagues who were misled by his monologue about human rights abuses at factories that supply Apple. But one party was absent from Daisey's wide-reaching note. The performer did not apologize directly to Apple, the company at the center of his caustic examination of factory conditions. "When I said onstage that I had personally experienced things I in fact did not, I failed to honor the contract I’d established...

Another day, another Andrew Lloyd Webber show on Broadway. EW got an exclusive look at the flashy revival of Jesus Christ Superstar, which officially opened on Thursday. The Book of Mormon announced a free-ticket lottery for its one year anniversary, which will no doubt make fans cheer “maha naibu eebowai.” Jim Parsons (The Big Bang Theory) showed his business-casual side in EW’s first look at Roundabout Theatre Company’s upcoming Harvey. Mike Daisey’s The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs continued to make headlines, with the latest being Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company’s supportive stance behind the heavily-criticized show.

Washington -- A Washington theater is apologizing for calling a one-man show that purported to show horrific working conditions at Chinese factories that made Apple products a work of nonfiction.

Performer Mike Daisey was recently forced to admit he made up parts of the show called "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs."

Still, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company said Wednesday that it plans to bring the play back to Washington this summer. It was first performed at the Washington theater in 2010 before moving onto other cities including New York.

The theater's artistic and managing directors say they stand by the show as a piece of theater. They say art is different from journalism.

Revelations that some claims in the show weren't true led to retractions by public radio's "This American Life" and corrections by other news organizations including The Associated Press.

The phrase “based on a true story” has become weak currency in the world of storytelling, and unfortunately it keeps getting worse.

The latest downgrading occurs at the hands of performer Mike Daisey and his falsehood-perforated theater monologue The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, about the exploitation of Chinese workers who manufacture Apple products.

Chicago Public Radio’s This American Life presented an entire episode this past weekend to retract and correct its very popular January show that featured Daisey’s now-discredited reporting. The entire program can be found here, and it’s compelling listening – even if you...

What my followers on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ saw today: • It's hard to imagine an accurate adaptation of Hunger Games that isn't rated R. Just thematically, never mind all the violence and blood. And yet, it's from a big studio and is relying on teen audiences, and so... 'The Hunger Games,' 'Bully' prompt MPAA ratings fight • Today's Facepalmiest Headline Award goes to: WonderCon: Peter Berg Explains How Stephen Hawking And His Father Inspired ‘Battleship’, Not The Board Game • When is theater journalism? Um, never... The Agony and Ecstasy of Mike Daisey • Fascinating postmortem on a deceased talk show. (I never saw it, but it sounds dire.) Rosie O’Donnell’s Disastrous Oprah Winfrey Network Experience • Social change deeply terrifies the small-minded... Massacre of emos in Iraq goes to core of a damaged society • If you love Sherlock and you love otters, you will love this. Otters Who Look...

Mike Daisey has released a statement on his official blog urging critics to focus on the bigger story of the nature of Apple’s Chinese manufacturing, rather than his admission that he fabricated important parts of his one-man show.

“If you think this story is bigger than that story, something is wrong with your priorities,” writes Daisey, whose The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs addresses working conditions of Apple employees in Chinese sweatshops. The off-Broadway production was the focus of a segment on Chicago Public Radio’s This American Life, which has since been retracted after word circulated...

Mike Daisey, whose controversial report on Apple was retracted by public radio program "This American Life" last week, has written a post on his blog defending himself. Not only does he -- again – claim it was a piece of theater, but he argues that the basis of his story, that Apple supplier Foxconn treats its workers inhumanely, remains true. As such, media condemnation is unfair. "Given the tenor of the condemnation, you would think I had concocted an elaborate, fanciful universe filled with furnaces in which babies are burned to make...

By now, most of you know that Mike Daisey, the actor and writer of "The Agony And Ecstacy Of Steve Jobs," admitted to fabricating parts of his one-man show and misleading producers of NPR's "This American Life," among other news sources. Entertainment Weekly reports that Daisey is retracting "questionable sections" of the monologue and adding a prologue about the controversy surrounding his reportage on Chinese factories. Oskar Eustis, the director of the Public Theater in New York, told EW that "Mike is a great storyteller, not a journalist. I wish he had been clearer about that distinction in the making of this piece." On NPR, Daisey supports this idea, saying, "The mistake that I truly regret is that I had it on your show as journalism and it’s not journalism. It’s theater."

'In an article in Forbes today, the author writes about "the viral allure of the almost true,...

Apple loosened the purse strings on Monday, announcing a quarterly dividend of $2.65 per share and a $10 billion stock buyback program. The Cupertino, California-based company estimates it will spend roughly $45 billion over the next three years. Wall Street responded enthusiastically to the news of Apple's spending plans. Shares of the stock opened at $597.19, up 1.98 percent. Also read: Apple in China & the Mike Daisey Problem: Bad ‘Journalism’ Clouds Jobs Issue The news also followed some unexpected public relations relief for the company over the weekend, as "This American Life" revealed that...

Mike Daisey, the off-Broadway performer who admitted that he made up parts of his one-man show about Apple products being made in Chinese sweatshops, has cut questionable sections from the monologue and added a prologue explaining the controversy.

Oskar Eustis, artistic director of The Public Theater, where the monologue is being performed, said Saturday that Daisey has “eliminated anything he doesn’t feel he can stand behind” from the show and added a section at the beginning in which he addresses the questions raised by critics. Eustis called the prologue “the best possible frame we could give the audience for...

Foxconn Technology Group, the biggest maker of iPhones and iPads for Apple, said today that it has no intention of taking legal action after a Us radio show retracted some claims about activity in its factories. However, the company said that the broadcast, which led to further investigation of working standards in Apple's supply chain, has "ruined" its corporate reputation. Last week, radio show This American Life pulled an episode which was highly critical of working conditions at Foxconn factories in China, after admitting that it contained "numerous fabrications". The episode in question, originally aired on January 6, was based heavily on the one-man theatrical show of actor Mike Daisey, entitled The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs. In a statement issued to Reuters, Foxconn spokesman Simon Hsing said: "Our corporate image has been (more)...

New York – Dramatic license or fraud? The question might not be quite so cut-and-dried, but that in essence is the nature of the debate that arises from Friday’s decision by This American Life, the popular show produced by Chicago-based Wbez and distributed by Public Radio International, to retract its January 6 episode featuring excerpts from Mike Daisey’s solo show, The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs. Photos: Apple Products in TV and Movies That two-hour monologue parallels self-professed tech geek Daisey’s love of all things Apple with his assessment of Jobs’ complex personal and

read more...

Mike Daisey is making it very hard for the rest of us to focus on a critical issue – Apple’s treatment of its workers in China. The “artist” who did a piece for the National Public Radio show “This American Life,” was forced to admit in recent days that he fabricated his accounts of worker mistreatment inside the Foxconn factory in China, where Apple and other technology companies make their products. In his piece on the award-winning program, produced by Ira Glass, Daisey says: “….. I saw underage workers. I talked to...

Washington Post/Getty Images Mike Daisey, the creator and star of “The Agony and the Ectasy of Steve Jobs.”

When I first encountered “Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory,” the episode of “This American Life” featuring monologuist Mike Daisey on Apple and the practices of its Chinese contract manufacturer Foxconn, I resisted passing it along.

Dozens of people sent it to me and urged me to share the link with others. I’d listened to the show; I thought it was enormously compelling.

The season is revving up, there’s only 85 days left until the Tonys, and one of the most anticipated plays of the spring, Death of a Salesman, just opened—but the stage news that had everyone talking this week was the revelation that monologist Mike Daisey had fabricated parts of his off-Broadway hit The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs. Yet, there were also good things going on: David Strathairn joined Jessica Chastain in next season’s The Heiress, Universal hired Downton Abbey’s Julian Fellowes to adapt another big screen Gypsy, and Val Kilmer announced he will play...

“This American Life” has retracted Mike Daisey’s groundbreaking piece about working conditions at Foxconn, a Chinese manufacturer used by Apple and several other prominent technology companies. A notice on the public radio program’s website said that the piece, “Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory,” was “partially fabricated.” The program will devote an entire episode to “detailing the errors” in the monologue. Ira Glass, the host of the show, plans to talk with Daisey about how he “misled” the program during the fact-checking process. "We’re horrified to have let something like this onto public radio,"...

This American Life has retracted its episode on Apple and Foxconn, the manufacturing company that makes iPhones and iPads.

In a press release Friday, This American Life said that the January episode, which painted a negative picture of life for employees at a factory in Shenzhen, China, was not properly vetted and that narrator Mike Daisey "misled This American Life during the fact-checking process" when he didn't provide the contact information ...

Read More >...

This American Life, one of public radio’s pantheons of virtue and Ira Glass jokes, has admitted it was totally burned by one of its correspondents. The show said today that Mike Daisey fabricated parts of his story about his trip to China investigating where Apple products are made. The episode, which was one of the show’s most popular, aired in January 2012 and was widely revered as gospel amongst anti-corporate advocates and even Ira Glass himself, who was bringing Daisey to Chicago for a now-canceled speaking event at the Chicago Theatre. Now, This American Life is airing an ...

Following an internal investigation, Ira Glass' public radio storytelling program This American Life has retracted a story that detailed inhumane working conditions at the Apple products manufacturing facility in China run by Foxconn. The story, which ran Jan. 6, was told by writer and actor Mike Daisey, who said that after a lifetime of worshipping the company's products, he decided to travel to the factory where they were made. There, he says he discovered startling working conditions, which he describes in his one-man show, The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs. The Pri program ran an excerpt, and is

read more...

On Friday, NPR's "This American Life" retracted an entire episode about inhumane working conditions at the Apple products manufacturing facility in China, after an internal investigation determined that some facts in the story were fabricated. The episode was an excerpt of performance artist and monologist Mike Daisey's one-man show, "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs," in which Daisey describes his visits to a factory owned by Foxconn that manufactures iPhones and iPads in Shenzhen, China."Daisey lied to me and to 'This American Life' producer Brian Reed during the fact checking we did on the story, before it was broadcast." Glass said. "That doesn't excuse the fact that we never should've put this on the air. In the end, this was our mistake." You can also read a press release that details the ways Daisey's theatrical production was misleading to "This American Life" fact-checkers.This weekend's episode of "This American.

"Gatz," the 7-hour word for word performance of "The Great Gatsby" that made everyone remember "books" 2 years ago is back. "Oh yeah, remember books?" went The New York Times' review of the Elevator Repair Service production. "They're so cool!" The nostalgia may have been unwarranted, but we're having a hard time not feeling it ourselves watching the effectively-scored promo videos for "Gatz"s return to The Public Theater. Steve Martin, Frances McDormand, Mike Daisey, Suzan-Lori Parks (who makes wonderful faces) and a whole crew of substitute Nick Carraways read the novel's first and final lovely chapters to Wrap It Up music from the twenties, and gah. Books, amirite? Check the videos out below (you can also find them at Ers' site), and head over to The Public Theater if you're looking for tickets. The show runs from March 14 to May 6.

If you can't make it out to the Public Theater in New York City to see Mike Daisey perform his explosive "The Agony And The Ecstasy Of Steve Jobs," never fear: tens of thousands of people now have the power to stage Daisey's one-man play themselves, including you, if you so choose. Daisey's radical decision to offer his script to the public as a free download on his Web site has resulted in 60,000 downloads in only a few days, reports Playbill:

A representative for Daisey said that within the first 48 hours of Agony and the Ecstacy's online publication Feb. 21, over 42,000 individuals had downloaded the script. The figure had risen to over 60,000 as of Feb. 24.

Playbill also reports that Lance Baker, a Chicago-based stage and film actor, will be among the first to perform the play, premiering it in Chicago at the Red Orchid Theatre on March 5.

For decades, Daisey has alchemized his obsessions into monologues.