Michael Swiskay

New York City, New York

Member Since:
August 2011

Last online:
> 2 weeks ago

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About Michael

For Michael, life has been a vivid, sometimes harrowing experience. Now he is driven to process it into film and theater narrative that will capture the attention of and emotionally move audiences.

Following studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Wharton, he worked for a Hedge Fund, then quit to pursue an acting career. Took a “real job”, in the brutal mercenary world of non-carnivorous “cannibalism”, that is executive search, more commonly known as “headhunting”. The engagement allowed flexibility to pursue the acting. An extremely effective 'cannibal', soon came a London relocation to build a European business with the acting 'on hold'. In those days was the business good, the money easy, the life decadent and Michael a very bod boy. Then the flirtation with mortality and 13 day coma. The job ended. less than favorably. He returned to acting, performing in Edinburgh during the festival and on New York's theater Row. Studies in dramatic writing with Robert McKee, Milan Stitt and at the Ensemble Studio Theatre were next. Now he is a writer in residence at the Simon Studio, a member of the American Renaissance Theater Company (aka ARTC), the Independent Feature Project (aka IFP) and the Dramatists Guild. THE MEANING, an autobiographical one act play, the winner of a One-Act-Play Festival in New York. ORBITING EZMERELDA, (originally titled 'Orbiting Frieda' and rewritten as a feature film script) a play in two acts, chosen semi-finalist in the American Theater Co-Op spring competition. ENTERPRISING, a finalist in ‘The Movie Deal’ screenplay contest, chosen as the best dramatic script at the New York International Independent Film & Video Festival and recipient of Honorable mention at the van Gogh awards of the Amsterdam Film Festival.

Gender:
Male

Height:
5' 8"

Weight:
165

Body type:
Athletic

Hair:
Receding

Hair color:
Black

Eyes:
Brown

Ethnicity:
Eastern European/Spanish

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Loglines

Enterprising Drama During an economic collapse, a scandal caused by a financial bottom fisher ensnares the African American financier who boldly navigates tacit racism and eventually triumphs as a Dutch prostitute in the Amsterdam Red Light District enchants him.
Cannibals Comedy The Adonis' triumph over anti ethical colleagues allows him to 'get the girl, a Westernized Muslim whose devout twin introduces a comic collision of Western and Muslim cultures.
Bujama Dreams Drama ⋄ Romance After cruel events drive the San Francisco couple apart, it will take the self-discovery garnered on the superstar salesman's subsequent Latin American adventure to compel him to rescue the charming lady accountant from a dating wasteland..
Orbiting Ezmerelda Comedy ⋄ Drama ⋄ Independent After throwing together brutal economics that has no conscience, the world’s richest man & his daughter with a dissolving marriage while an artist 'kills himself', the next step for the childless yet maternally obsessed art-curator protagonist will be alternative insemination.

Credits

Orbiting Frieda, later titled Orbiting Ezmerelda (2002)
Theater by Semi-Finalist , American Theater Co- Op Spring Festival. Writer
The Meaning (1988)
Theater by Dir.-Tom Ross, Village Gate Festival of One Act Plays, Writer

Awards

'The Meaning' Winner, Village Gate Festival of one act plays
'Enterprising' Best Dramatic Script, Screenplay comp., NYIIFF and finalist in the Movie Deal Screenplay contest.
'Orbiting Ezmerelda' finalist for the Robert J. Pickering Award for Playwriting Excellence.