Michael Downend

Scriptwriter and actor for stage and television (Member: The Authors Guild, Writers Guild of America, Dramatists Guild, PEN) and Photojournalist (Member: ASMP, NPPA, EP). Licensed pilot: AOPA #460890. Also writes as Liam Tracey. Former US Marine and graduate British Royal Marine Commando School. Lives Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Writer/narrator of award-winning PBS documentary, A Journey to the Endless Mountains, Frank Lloyd Wright Falling Water and other programs. Min, his play for radio, broadcast on NPR, is the first in a series about women-ordinary and heroic-commissioned by public radio. An American Wife, a stage play written in collaboration with his late wife, novelist, playwright and poet, Karen Blomain, premiered with an Equity production to sold-out performances at The Electric Theatre Company. Nora Hussey produced and directed An American Wife in Boston in spring 2012. Recipient of Rockefeller Grant for his play, The Mola Mola Fish and Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Playwriting Fellowships. Among his other plays are Aren't You Bonnie Bedelia?, The Light From Distant Objects, The Watershops Pond, Going Out Noisy, The Plovers, The Covert Motel, Mercy Street, The Old Folks at Home, Occoquan, The Hazard, Sylvan Beach, High Thin Cirrus (Sold out in New York), The Woman at the Hockney Exhibtion, The Vallarta Tango, Rattlesnake Roundup, and The Pig Killers. Min, his play for radio about Min Lurye Matheson who helped found the ILGWU, is being developed as a full-length script. His poetry has been published by the University of Chicago Press, the Endless Mountains review and others. Downend has also produced book covers (including the cover art for The Season of Lost Children, Karen Blomain's novel), one-man and group shows. Honored for photo and narrative coverage of the March for SovietJewry in Washington, DC.

He played the role of Jorn in Robot Holocaust (1987) at the request of his friend, the writer and director of the film Tim Kincaid who did intend it as a parody.