Actor Spotlight

Dallas monologist John Michael has passion for craft beer and Vampire Weekend

The 2014 Dallas Solo Fest, which runs May 15-18 and May 22-25 at the Margo Jones Theatre in Fair Park, may be a new addition to the DFW theater scene, but one of its performers is an old hand at solo performance.

John Michael has written and starred in four well-received one-man shows here in Dallas, most recently Like Me at last year's Festival of Independent Theatres and John Michael and the Order of the Penix, a riff on Harry Potter, at Nouveau 47. His shows are personal, thought-provoking and provocative — not unlike the man himself.

Before his newest work debuts (May 15 at 10:30 pm, May 16 at 9 pm and May 23 at 10:30 pm), John Michael took the time to fill out our survey of serious, fun and sometimes ridiculous questions.

Name: John Michael Colgin

Role and show in DFW Solo Festival: I am playing myself in my fifth one-man show titled Crossing Your I's, directed by Erin Singleton and designed by Ely Sellers.

Hometown: Dallas

Where you currently reside: East Dallas

Previous work in DFW theater: I performed three times with Junior Players and once with Shakespeare Dallas. I am currently the resident artist for Nouveau 47 Theatre.

First theater role: Nick Bottom, Midsummer's Night Dream

First theater show: The Nutcracker

Moment you decided to pursue a career in theater: I don't know if there was one moment. I do remember the moment I decided to pursue being a monologist.

Most challenging role you've played: Myself

Special skills: I am pretty good at preventing people with dementia from escaping the assisted living center I work at.

Something you're really bad at: Driving a car

Current pop culture obsession: Local beer

Last book you read: The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P by Adelle Waldman

Favorite movies: Drive and Jurassic Park

Favorite musicians: James Blake, Beach House and Vampire Weekend

Favorite song: "Oh Lonesome Me"

Dream role: I would love to play my brother on the stage. He's so cool. Everyone loves him when they meet him.

Favorite play: A Midsummer Night's Dream

Favorite actor: Justin Locklear

Favorite food: Avocado

Must-see TV show: Broad City

Something most people don't know about me: I am a bicyclist and I am a huge craft beer enthusiast.

Place in the world you'd most like to visit: Spain

Pre-show warm-up: I first run around the theater jumping up and down. I then do breathing exercises and the Fitzmaurice sequence.

Favorite part about your current role: One of my favorite things to do is to find the laughter in odd places. In this case it is the topic of memory loss, which scares most people. The show follows me trying to hold onto my job at an assisted living center that specializes in memory care. My future self visits me in a time machine to deliver a life-altering message, but he can't remember it because he has dementia.

Most challenging part about your current role: I started studying solo performance in 2010 at Oklahoma State with my teacher, Matthew Tomlanovich. Since then, he has been involved deeply with the development of each of my four shows.

He was going to direct this show, but he became sick after the first rehearsal in early April. Matthew is now recovering in the ICU and needs your prayers. Part of me didn't want to do this show without my biggest supporter. Each time I visit him, his first question is always, "How's the show?"

Most embarrassing onstage mishap: I was in the ensemble of Our Town at Oklahoma State University, and I thought it would be a good idea to try out the McRib for the first time. Needless to say it was not a good idea. I ended up farting during the third act, when I was supposed to be playing a dead person.

The rest of the ensemble later told me that "they now knew what death was like." The director would remind me of this incident as much as possible. The next time I auditioned for him, he put a clothespin on his nose. It was such a traumatic experience.

Career you'd have if you weren't a performer: Flight attendant

Favorite post-show spot: Windmill Lounge

Favorite thing about Dallas Fort-Worth: Justin Locklear and Danielle Georgiou both live here.

Most memorable onstage moment: It was closing night of John Michael and the Order of the Penix, and I let my mother choose where to sit: the front row. Normally, I place her in the very back row so I don't have to see her face.

The show was going great. After reaching the part where a lover cuddles me, my mother speaks up and asks, "How did that make you feel?" I froze for a second. She then proceeds to interrupt me a second time during the show. I thanked her for birthing me and everything else she has done for me.

I proceeded to charge the audience members sitting next to her with the task of keeping my mother quiet so that I could finish the show. What was great about it was how the audience could tell how much my mother loves me.

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A good listen

Dallas Symphony and Fabio Luisi release landmark Wagner 'Ring Cycle' set

Fabio Luisi conducting the Dallas Symphony Orchestra

Photo courtesy of Dallas Symphony Orchestra

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Fabio Luisi wanted his Ring Cycle to be heard and not seen.

Wagner’s four-opera epic Der Ring des Nibelungen, approaching the 150th anniversary of its premiere in 1876, has been reinterpreted and deconstructed by directors finding various meanings in the conflicts among gods, humans, giants and dwarfs.

While most new recordings are on video, Luisi led his Dallas Symphony Orchestra in concert performances that were released on 13 compact discs by Delos on May 22 and are available on streaming services.

“Wagner conceived this as a total immersion in visual and acoustic, but I could focus really only on the music, and this was the point actually — not to be distracted by staging and not to have to cope with maybe strange ideas of staging,” Luisi said. “I think the music tells everything.”

Luisi became DSO music director in 2020 and broached the idea while dining two years later with (the now late) Morton H. Meyerson, a longtime board member.

“Fabio came back from lunch sort of giddy but sort of sheepishly saying: `Do you think that this would ever be possible?” recalled Kim Noltemy, the Dallas CEO at the time. “So, I said, well, let’s give it a try. So, we called around to see if there were people who wanted to support it and did a budget.”

After securing a waiver from the orchestra allowing for the needed rehearsals and performance length, recordings were made during four concerts from May 1-5 and six more from Oct. 5-20. Each opera was performed two or three times.

Americans in cast fill big roles
American singers featured prominently, with Mark Delavan as Wotan, Lise Lindstrom as Brünnhilde and Sara Jakubiak as Sieglinde, part of a cast that included Christopher Ventris (Siegmund), Daniel Johansson (Siegfried), Deniz Uzun (Fricka), Tómas Tómasson (Alberich), Michael Laurenz (Mime) and Stephen Milling (Hagen).

Delavan sang Wotan at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in 2013 after Luisi took over from an ailing James Levine in Robert Lepage’s much-maligned production staged on a 45-ton set of 24 rotating planks.

“We’re accessible and they know that we’re hungry and we have a chip on our shoulders,” Delavan said. “What conductors like about American singers is their technique is sound. Even a European conductor would say: Well, I’m going to give up some of the communication skills, only one degree of separation with the language, but I’m going to get a solid technique, and I’m going to get pretty good acting chops.”

Lindstrom has been in Atlanta to sing in its production of “Götterdämmerung,” the concluding night of the tetralogy, leading to what is being billed as the first complete Ring Cycles in the America South in 2029.

“The wonderful thing about it is the intimacy between the orchestra and us, because we’re not separated by a chunk of stage or a chunk a scenery or a chunk of concept,” she said of the Dallas performances. “And for people like me, who have had the opportunity to perform the role before, I have all those iterations to rely on for my portrayal that I can sort of filter myself through.”

A younger Luisi listened to famous renditions
Luisi, 67, first heard a Ring recording in Georg Solti’s famous studio set with the Vienna Philharmonic from 1958-65. He also admires Karl Böhm’s live recording from the 1967 Bayreuth Festival and Marek Janowski’s 1980-83 studio version with the Staatskapelle Dresden.

He first conducted Ring when he was music director of Dresden’s Semperoper from 2007-10. Luisi’s Dallas performances include more legato and softer sound than his rendition a decade earlier at the Met. He tries to keep an arc from the first notes of “Das Rheingold” to the final strains of “Götterdämmerung.”

“I have a deeper understanding about the meaning of this piece,” he said. “I consider the ring to be a big Bruckner symphony. So we have the introduction, then we have the first movement, this is “Walküre,” which happens to be a slow movement, and then we have the scherzo, which is “Siegfried,” of course, and then the long, long, last movement. There is a unity.”

dso luisi ring wagner recording concerts music symphony