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The Story:

Joe loves apple pie, Rush Limbaugh, the fourth of July and his wife Jane. He is blue-collar, corn-fed, made in the USA and proud, but when his uninsured wife is diagnosed with cancer his patriotic feelings and passion for the ethos of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are turned upside down. In Mercy Killers, a new one-man play, Joe struggles with the uniquely American experience of losing your health in the land of plenty.

"As a long-time advocate for meaningful healthcare reform, I found a refreshing perspective in ‘Mercy Killers’. When focusing on policy, it can be easy to lose sight of the actual plight faced by real people. The play provides a very personal look at the blameless catastrophe many average Americans face when they become ill. As a doctor, I have amassed plenty of my own horror stories of patient suffering. I was surprised I could be this affected by yet another. However, Milligan’s acting is superb, and I was completely engrossed in the story from beginning to end. The tale he weaves brings you into the middle of a needless, mind-numbing tragedy that should never happen in a country as wealthy as ours. It has power that facts and figures will never offer. Regardless of political persuasion or beliefs about how to fix the healthcare mess, audience members will leave the performance deeply moved and in agreement that we simply cannot leave things as they are." Ann Settgast, MD, Co-chair, Minnesota chapter of Physicians for a National Healthcare Program

About the Author/Performer:

Michael is a performer who has been writing and acting for the theater for almost two decades. Milligan has appeared on the Broadway stage as Little Charles in August: Osage County, De Bries in La Bete, and as a ‘raver’ and understudy on Jerusalem. No stranger to the one man show, Milligan performed Pulitzer finalist Will Eno’s ‘Thom Pain’ in the original New York run taking over from James Urbaniak and T. Ryder Smith at the DR2. Other New York credits include The Golem with Robert Prosky, the world premiere of ‘The Empty Ocean’ with Harold Clurman Theater Lab, and ‘Nightlands’ with New Georges.

He also received 4 Stars for his performance of Lanford Wilson’s one man show ‘Poster of the Cosmos’ at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. A performance which also earned him Best Actor nods in his hometown, Columbus, Ohio. Milligan’s other produced plays include ‘Heroine,’ ‘Urgent: Aliens,’ and a musical adaptation of Aesop’s Fables for Circle in the Square with composer/rocker, Joziah Longo, of Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams.

A reading of Milligan’s verse play, ‘Phaeton’ was presented by the Harold Clurman Theater Lab featuring Mark Rylance, David Hyde Pierce, and Joanna Lumley. The play was later presented by conservatory students at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting and as a part of the NYU graduate acting program’s ‘Studio Tisch’ featuring Elizabeth Zins and Dakin Mathews. Phaeton will be presented as a part of the New Globe Theater's 'Read Not Dead' reading series this summer. His adaptation of Jack London’s ‘The Sea Wolf’ has undergone several workshops and readings featuring Jay O. Sanders as the enigmatic Wolf Larsen. Milligan got his start writing stories for his mother who is a professional storyteller in Central Ohio.

Milligan received his training from Juilliard where he won the John Houseman Prize for excellence in classical drama. His love of Shakespeare has taken him around the world performing the bard for the Shakespeare Theater, Royal Shakespeare Company, Shakespeare and Company, Cincinatti Playhouse, St. Louis Rep, the Utah, Alabama, Illinois, Colorado Shakespeare Festivals, Milwaukee Shakes, Shakespeare Festival of St. Louis, and New Jersey Shakespeare in roles as diverse as Hamlet, Mercutio, Romeo, Angelo, Cassio, Dromio, Lucentio, Antipholus, Mark Antony, Edgar, Orlando, as well as many spear carriers and various shrubbery movers. Milligan is a sometime instructor of Shakespeare at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in NYC.

He has also appeared at many of the nation’s top regional theaters including the Guthrie, Westport Country Playhouse, Charlotte Rep, The McCarter Theater, and Folger Theater in Washington D.C.