Michael is a Canadian set and costume designer, known for his work in theatre, musical theatre, opera and dance. His multifaceted designs include period, contemporary, conceptual and site-specific work that has been seen across Canada, in the United States, England and Italy.
Recent projects include the set design for Richard II and Chicago at the Stratford Festival, The Importance of Being Earnest at the Citadel Theatre, At the Beginning of Time at the Centaur Theatre, Jasper at the Off-Broadway Signature Theatre in New York City at and the set design for Just to Get Married at the Shaw Festival.
Michael designed the set for the world premiere of the opera Hadrian by Rufus Wainwright and Daniel McIvor at the Canadian Opera Company, the costume design for the opera Ricciardo e Zoraide at the Rossini Festival in Pesaro, Italy, starring Juan Diego Flórez and Pretty Yende, and the costume designs for the world premiere of the ballet Frame by Frame created by Robert Lepage and Guillaume Côté for the National Ballet of Canada and Ex Machina.
In September of 2021, Michael designed the set for Embrasse, the latest play by internationally celebrated playwright Michel Marc Bouchard, directed by Eda Holmes. The production opened the 70th season of the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde in Montreal, co-produced with the Centaur Theatre Company, and marked the first time Montreal’s two largest French and English theatre companies have collaborated.
He has designed for 14 seasons at the Stratford Festival, North America’s largest repertory theatre company currently led by artistic director Antoni Cimolino and executive director Anita Gaffney, where he frequently collaborates with director/choreographer Donna Feore on the Festival’s musical productions. Their production of The Rocky Horror Show in 2018 became the Festival’s longest-running production in the theatre’s 70-year history.
At North America’s second-largest repertory theatre, The Shaw Festival, Michael has designed for 9 seasons working on classics, musicals and new work. In 2015, he collaborated with then artistic director Jackie Maxwell on the world premiere of The Divine: A Play for Sarah Bernhardt by Michel Marc Bouchard. His set design for Cabaret with visionary director Peter Hinton was a part of the 2015 Prague Quadrennial for Performance Design and Space, in an exhibit featuring the excellence of Canadian theatre design.
He has designed productions for Canadian Opera Company, National Ballet of Canada, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, Canadian Stage Company, National Arts Centre, Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, Citadel Theatre, Theatre Calgary, Centaur Theatre, The Grand Theatre, Mirvish Productions, Musical Stage Company, Obsidian Theatre, Ross Petty Productions, Tarragon Theatre, Buddies in Bad Times, Segal Centre, Theatre Passe Muraille, Canadian Rep Theatre, Studio 180, Against the Grain, Young People’s Theatre, Neptune Theatre, Theatre Panik, The Royal Conservatory of Music and Opera Ontario. Michael worked extensively with Queen of Puddings Music Theatre, designing new operas that premiered in Toronto, The Linbury Theatre at the Royal Opera House in London and Opera Philadelphia.
Michael is a recipient of a Dora Mavor Moore Award, two Montreal English Theatre Awards, The Brian Jackson Award from the Stratford Festival and The Virginia and Myrtle Cooper Award in Costume Design from the Ontario Arts Foundation.
For Les Grands Ballets, he created the sets for La Dame aux Camélias and Kaleidoscope. He was also set and costume designer for the Rodin/Claudel ballet.
