The Playwright's Work

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Fishing For Paradise

If Colorado Had An Ocean
(Part III of The Honor and Glory of Whaling trilogy)

How and Why I Robbed My First Cheese Store

The Poet and the Lumberjack
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The Honor and Glory of Whaling
(Part II of The Honor and Glory of Whaling trilogy)

Death by Joinery

Single Action Shotgun

Counting Coup

Ultralight
(Part I of The Honor and Glory of Whaling trilogy)

A Funny Old Bird

An Evening of Good Clean Fun

Interview

Chores, or The Big Man in the Orange Rubber Rain Suit

NYC 123

​Something Different to Look At

Island Still Life

Goin' West​

December 2014

December 2014​

May-June 2011

June 2009

December 2007 - January 2008

La MaMa Galleria, New York​

La MaMa, New York

La MaMa, New York

La MaMa, New York

La MaMa, New York

Multi-media installation

When old high-school friends Steven and Big John—an aspiring commercial fisherman and a long-distance truck driver—reunite on a hotel construction site in New Bedford Massachusetts in 1988, the stage is set for a fishing and drug fueled adventure worthy of the elusive pursuit and chaotic final chase of Moby Dick.

A homeless playwright turns the tables on the patronizing Artistic Director of a downtown theatre to pull off a potent Page Six story headline, if not the most absurd heist of all time.
Featuring video, photography, cheese and a life-sized taxidermy horse.

The two masks of Mike Gorman. This one night only event presented a retrospective of the playwright's work, including a short documentary on the first two plays in his epic trilogy "The Honor and Glory of Whaling", an examination of his comedic roots with a performance of The Fabulous Giggin' Bros. classic "Biffing Mussels" and a new comedy, "The Poet and the Lumberjack". Two short performance videos were also shown from his roots with the Giggin' Bros.--"The Pedestrian" and "Making a Mess of it".

An epic tale that follows the fate of legendary New England fishing captain Robby Foerster and his boat "The Northern Star". After a fatal first encounter with heroin—the "Great White Whale" of the modern fishing community--Robby falls deeply into addiction. The play explores the role of myth and storytelling as both sustaining and destructive forces in a Northeast coastal fishing community, engaging the audience in a dramatic critical debate as to what extent tragedy, held to be inherent in the fishing community, might be avoidable.

June 2006

La MaMa, New York

Two carpenters—T and G, of "T & G All-Star Construction"—stumble upon the occult publishing world of "how-to" books as they read a book to pass the time on a ferry boat ride.Things come to a desperate climax as the cult leaders resort to Down-East voodoo to turn T and G's car into a coffin, trapping the now "possessed" carpenters inside. T and G gasp for air and claw at the windows as the ferry slips into its berth. Will the carpenters manage to escape or has their fate been sealed to be the first two people killed in a car by a book?

June 2001

La MaMa, New York

A beloved local swamp is threatened by a real-estate developer from Poughkeepsie, inspiring a new-found harmony in a Massachusetts community of fractured farmers, car mechanics, country matriarchs and a trickster boy who transforms into a beaver. There is an allegory at work—the community is to be taken as the American family and the play as a serious statement on what's missing in it. The play includes live-music, dance and a beaver puppet operated by one of the characters.

June 2002

La MaMa, New York

Counting Coup portrays a dreaming soccer player's journey into the past and the realm of myth as he seeks to discover a way to lead his team to victory in a championship game. Featuring dance-puppetry, soccer choreography, original live music and Mohawk Indian shamanic ritual.

December 2000

La MaMa, New York

UltraLight is a play about a younger brother's struggle to help his older brother fight his heroin addiction. The play takes the form of a dramatic parable, with the younger brother cast in the role of a fisherman and the older brother cast in the role of a trout. Interwoven with the present-time action of the play is a mythical story that explores the lessons to be learned from addiction about the bonds of brotherhood, wilderness, story telling and integrity—what it means to be alive, "really and truly" alive.

January 1998

La MaMa, New York

A Funny Old Bird celebrates the survival of character, family and neighborhood in the face of the conforming forces of contemporary American culture. A Serviceman arrives at the door of the Dupelle residence to "groom" the family parakeet. It soon becomes clear, however, that the Serviceman has been sent for more serious purposes than the grooming of a small bird.

   

La MaMa, New York

March 2002

La MaMa, New York

It's just another day at the office in the well ordered life of Bill McVort, until Al Holiday shows up. Al's taking the business world by force, no prisoners, and he's got the suit to do it in. He's got nothing to hide, but Bill's got a few things locked away in the closet. Gowns and wigs? Nope. Wrong closet. Just a battery operated cheese slicer, a years supply of Turtle Wax car care products and the very frank Frank Guinea, office assistant exstraordinare.

1994

La MaMa, New York

A series of comic turns for four "regular" folks—a one-armed mechanic, a fundamentalist cleaning lady, a thirty-five year old paperboy and a paranoid logger—whose path to salvation is through their daily chores.
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March 1994

La MaMa, New York

Mike's NYC premier with The Fabulous Giggin' Bros' featuring two short absurd plays written by Mike, Biffing Mussels and Conversation Pieces, and a third, A Random Act of Violence, co-written with his brother Will. Read the Village Voice review for a take on Biffing Mussels and Conversation Pieces.

A Random Act of Violence--Two rabbits move in next door to Bob Jones, a United States Postal Service worker, whose hand has been disfigured on the job. The rabbits keep up a cynical running commentary on the depressing state of Bob's life as they follow him to work one day where he is promptly fired by his boss who gleefully claims that he "has a reputation to uphold of pushing otherwise normal people into committing unspeakable acts of desperation." Bob goes on a rampage, shooting 19 people, only to be acquitted of all charges following a brilliant courtroom argument for, and demonstration of, the randomness of Bob's actions by the rabbits, turned Defense Attorney and star witness.

   

Vinalhaven, Maine (and other regional venues)

August 1992

"Island Still Life" is the coming of age quest of Raven, an island native from the coast of Maine, to free herself from the desperate boredom and superficiality of the postcard her life has become with her summer friends. After a summer of constant tribute to what a beautiful place they're so blessed to be living in and what wonderful friends they have, dictated by Derrick, a sensitive sailing instructor "from away", Raven has become viciously cynical. She is hungry for action instead of scenery and yearns for the originality of a real adventure.

September 1987

You may find yourself in your apartment. And you may find yourself drinking beer out of a soup pan. And you may find yourself bullhead fishing in your apartment. And you may say to yourself; "My god, I need a big yellow school bus." Goin' West, "a myth for the misbegotten."
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