Bio used for Lear, Garage, and The Orderly:

 

Michael Downey trained as an actor at the Unitec School of Performing and Screen Arts, and later completed an MA in Drama Studies from the University of Auckland. In the 

summer of 2018 he trained in Prague Shakespeare Company’s Summer Shakespeare 

Intensive, playing Octavius Caesar and Soothsayer in Julius Caesar at the Estates Theatre. Other stage credits include Seoul Shakespeare Company’s Macbeth (Macbeth), The Tempest (Prospero), Titus Andronicus (Titus), and King Lear (Lear); Bucheon Cultural

Foundation’s The Soldier’s Tale (Narrator); Eurasia Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Richard III (Clarence) at the National Theatre of Korea; Auckland Museum’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Puck); SmackBang Theatre’s Daddy’s Dollar (the Man); ConArtists’ The X Folios

 (Ensemble); and Free Theatre’s Oedipus the King (Creon). Screen credits include Power Rangers (Baron Von Gerstein); Shortland Street (Barry Brown); Street Legal (Athol Nombach); 

Interrogation (Gordon Sellars); and Xena: Warrior Princess (Young villager). Michael has directed SSC’s productions of The Merchant of Venice, Garage, The Winter’s Tale, and Much Ado About 

Nothing; other directing credits include New Year’s Eve by David MacGregor, and A Circular Play by Gertrude Stein. He co-founded the Rebel Alliance Theatre Company in 2006, their first production being his solo play The Orderly, which toured New Zealand and was adapted for radio. Another playwriting credit, Aroha, won the 2007 SmackBang PlayRight award. Michael is now Founding Co-Artistic Director of the new theatre company Speech of Fire.