Michael received a Bachelor of Music in viola performance from Oberlin Conservatory and a Master of Arts in theatre from Villanova University. Hollinger is a resident playwright at New Dramatists and Assistant Professor of Theatre at Villanova University. Sloan Foundation Science and Technology Project, and fellowships from the Independence Foundation, Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, and Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Otto Haas Award for an Emerging Theatre Artist, a Mid-Atlantic Emmy Award, a commission from The Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Stevens Award from the Kennedy Center's Fund for New American Plays, a Barrymore Award for Outstanding New Play, the F. For PBS, he has written three short films and co-authored the feature-length Philadelphia Diary. he also wrote the 3D Laser Show Extreme Choices for New Jersey's Liberty Science Center. Hollinger has written seven touring plays for young audiences, including Eureka! and Hot Air, both published by Playscripts, Inc. These plays are all published by Dramatists Play Service Tiny Island also appears in New Playwrights: Best Plays of 1999, published by Smith and Kraus. Michael Hollinger is the author of Red Herring, Incorruptible , An Empty Plate in the Cafe du Grand Boeuf, and Tiny Island, all of which premiered at Philadelphia's Arden Theatre Company and have together enjoyed numerous productions around the United States, in New York City, and abroad. Red Herring runs through July 30 at Theatre in the Round in Minneapolis, MN.(The information in this section of the study guide is quoted verbatim from New Dramatists and Playscripts Inc.) Just remember to feed your meter during intermission – run-time pushes 2.5 hours plus intermission change. This farcical comedy is hardly serious business, but it is a very entertaining way to pass an hour or two. (It’s never too hard to sort out who’s who in that moment.) Most of the actors play several characters, which is extra fun in a show filled with subterfuge and disguise. The author layers on reveal after reveal director Lynn Musgrave keeps things moving well, while carefully slowing the action for each character’s moment in the sun. Yes, I did say McCarthy – that’s Joseph McCarthy’s daughter, and Wisconsin has more than a fake-cheese role to play in the dénouement. Hollinger’s script has some clear favorites, giving most of the best lines to Laura Pelletier (Laura Hoover) and Lynn McCarthy (Maddy La Roche), around whose performances the slick dialogue pivots. A beautiful rendition of a classic painted advertisement adorns one wall, a Chekov’s gun if there ever was one. The show’s cat-and-mouse spy hunt covers a lot of locations, and there’s not a vomitorium or ledge that goes unused. One of the chief exhibits in this production is the splendid set by Michael Hoover, which uses forced perspective and a few other devices to make TRP’s space seem positively cavernous. The feel is entirely unlike Hollinger’s better-known dramedies (e.g., Opus) and has a very British air of humor to it. That’s a slight exaggeration – but it does run very quickly, at least, into Cold War spycraft and nuclear weapons. Michael Hollinger’s Red Herring, now playing at Theatre in the Round, is a bedroom farce whose mistaken identities and misunderstandings quickly spiral outside of the bedroom into potential nuclear war.
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