Jon Michaelson
Theatre & Film Directing
U p c o m i N G / in PROGRESS F I L M & T H E A T R E projEcts (2024-2025/6)
Inside The PATERverse
Documentary about singer/songwriter/performer PARMIDA VAND aka PATER (shooting fall 2024)
A f t e r /B A A L
ROCKING OUT @ The Red Sandcastle Theatre November 13 2023 : After/BAAL Workshop presentation featuring Astrid Van Wieren, Parmida Vand, JD Nicholsen, Sarah Richardson, Mike Tae Lee, and Michael Scholar Jr. Phase 3 Workshop: December 2024 Toronto.
Playwright Rose Cullis, director Jon Michaelson, and three actor musicians - Astrid Van Wieren, JD Nicholsen, and Parmida Vand - were invited for a Performance Arts Creation Lab residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts in March 2022 to workshop this new play with songs.
Another workshop & presentation followed in November 2023 in Toronto, Directed by Jon Michaelson, featuring Astrid, JD, Parmida, Sarah Richardson, Mike Tae Lee, and Michael Scholar Jr.
Producers: Rose Cullis, Astrid Van Wieren, Jon Michaelson, Michael Scholar Jr. www. novembertheatre.com/current-productions
A phase 3 Workshop happened in December 2024 at the Tarragon Theatre Extra Space Toronto. (see videos)
more info @
www.astridvanwieren.com/theatre-2
Teaser Trailer for After/BAAL (archival footage) from Dec 15, 2024 workshop presentation at Tarragon Theatre Extra Space Toronto
“Rose Cullis’s new play looks, unflinchingly, at what love can be, and sometimes what it fails to be among friends who are brought together by their Art. We often have stories about artists, musicians in particular, breaking up after a long career but this story looks at how band members struggle to come back together many years after an early tragedy (a suicide) drove them and their band apart. When I read the script I was immediately engaged by the rawness of the emotions expressed by Rose's characters.” - Catherine Banks, Playwright -
“Rose Cullis has captured something truthful and exhilarating about this kind of life. Paired with Astrid Van Wieren's powerful songs for the piece, we’re excited about this show’s potential to create something wonderful –“ Irene Sankoff & David Hein -
“I’ve heard Astrid's songs for BAAL, a rock n roll play, and they are exceptional. Now she's working on some new songs for After/BAAL. I've had a listen to the first new song for the show - “Everything and Nothing” and it's wonderful.” - Michael Rubinoff -
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TWO - (pre 2023) - ISRAELI DRAMA PROJECTS
ASTONISHED LIVES
A recently widowed Jewish American man leaves his now haunted North American home and journeys to Israel for the first time, searching for a way to make sense of living without his beloved wife, and of somehow moving forward.
On the road, he encounters other lost souls – peace seekers and strivers, false prophets and would-be healers, and at least one femme fatale - on their own promised land odysseys.
a play by JM
“The play overall is really great. I love the story, and Lenny's journey, and the flashbacks to Maddie, and her journey. Lots of great stuff about Israel, and all the issues there, and how they get mixed up in Lenny's journey. Great characters along the way. Great writing. Great atmosphere as well - “ Lee MacDougall (author of the play “High Life”)
I N S I T U
(‘where love is the most dangerous emotion…where the past is ever present’)
i n s i t u
is a character-driven romantic drama with noir-like elements. Set within an Israeli archeological environment, it features mostly English language dialogue, with scenes in Arabic and Hebrew. Set primarily in and around Jerusalem, as well as on a dig-site cave in the Judean desert, where Jews and Arabs compete to lay claim to the buried artifacts of their past…
“The script compels further reading from the start. The focus on the love story between a married Jew and a young Palestinian woman is very well put and effectively built to a climax
The characters of Jake and Sumaya are well developed real and mature personalities. Asif is also a real main character. You can identify with these people.
What's very likable is that it isn't black and white. There are good Jews and Palestinians and bad ones. This makes the story strong and balanced.
The plot in the second part reads as a thriller. You want to know how it ends as well as what happens with Jake and Sumaya as well as Asif.”
- Eddy Janssen, Israel -
“The script is very interesting, and quite accurate in terms of the desert archaeology work.“ - Noam Shalev, producer, Tel Aviv -
MURDER BALLAD
A ROCK & ROLL MUSICAL A NEW YORK CITY NOIR
THE STORY OF A LOVE TRIANGLE GONE WRONG
Conceived by Julia Jordan
(Jonathan Larsen Award winner/two time Susan Smith Blackburn Prize finalist)
with book and lyrics by Jordan, and music and lyrics by indie rock singer/songwriter Juliana Nash of the band Talking To Animals.
CANADIAN PREMIERE
Coming in 2025 from RPR Media Group & Mercury Stage Productions
Cast, Venue and show dates TBA.
(Director's notes)
Murder Ballad is really like a rock & roll opera – the stuff of melodrama edging into tragedy, the way people's bliss-filled lives can go to hell when romantic passions get twisted by lust, jealousy, possessiveness, betrayal, and anger...
I see this show as a sort of noir fever dream - the kind that sucks you in as you watch and listen and feel implicated because it's such an intimate dangerously alive experience. So I like the idea of having the action spill out into the midst of minimal settings - in a neon, metallic, ad and graffiti saturated urban environment - where audiences can sit and drink and witness the volatile entertainment engaging them – which makes them another character in our protagonists lives: the public.
The varying intensity of the three dozen plus songs – which range from yearning ballads to in your face rockers - demands a visceral performance dynamic that matches the rough and tumble of the outsized passions these on and off again couples expose with such vulnerable and edgily confessional immediacy.
Murder Ballad will be an emotionally compelling, sensually vibrant, suspenseful show that mixes domestic marital drama with the confusions of romantic love gone awry. It juxtaposes the driven rhythms of rock & roll with the kind of heartache found in the blues. It's an opportunity for a crack cast – and a killer rock & roll band - to offer raw, vivid, volatile performances, and to leave audiences shaken and stirred.