Mike Czuba (He/Him)

I AM I
Theater Writer Synopsis: Man #1 and Man #2 are locked in a life long struggle between wants and needs, the rational and the desired, never fully understanding that they cannot exist without each other. Man #1 wants to quietly merge into the traffic of everyday life while Man #2 wants to cut a new path through the wilderness. This battle of ideals comes to a head with the introduction of Sonya, the latest object of interest and the metaphor for all that came before. I AM I exposes the inner workings of a dark heart and an over-worked mind, shattering any idea of a fourth wall, creating a visceral, funny and painfully honest meta-theatrical journey. Cast Size: 2 Males, 1 Female

Satie et Cocteau
Drama Writer "...a truly excellent piece of theatre which deals convincingly and imaginatively with one of the most fraught love-hate relationships in modern French art. It has real depth and excellent dramatic pacing and is a work of art in itself." Robert Orledge, Composer and Satie scholar. A surreal love story between a director and an actor, a poet and a composer and the madness and purity of art. Satie et Cocteau is a play about the classical composer Erik Satie and his complex relationship with the surrealist poet Jean Cocteau. We watch as Cocteau directs an American Actor playing the role of Satie, in a play that Cocteau wrote in 1939 called ‘Soyons Vulgaires’, 14 years after the death of Satie. Cocteau, in an opium haze, directs the Actor in a series of ‘scenes’, which run the length of Satie’s life and career. We discover, in this final rehearsal, that Cocteau’s intentions are for the Actor to fully possess Satie and bring him to life so he can finally exorcise him from his life. Cocteau has been attempting to do this since Satie refused to see him on his deathbed. On a half-finished set, with live music played on two pianos stacked on top of each other and a large shadow screen reminiscent of the Chat Noir in 1920’s Paris, Cocteau and the Actor embark on a journey which the Actor describes in his opening monologue as: “What you are about to see is a re-creation of a memory of a memory of actual events.” This is a play about the reality of memories, the possession of art, and the ‘truth’ of the theatre.