Billboard

Two years ago Andrew Fischer, a Web site designer from Omaha, went on eBay with an offer to hawk someone else’s product on his forehead. He eventually accepted a bid of $37,375 to wear a temporary tattoo of the SnoreStop logo for 30 days, went on to start a Web site (humanadspace.com) and encouraged others to sell out too. Mr. Fischer may not have started a movement but he has inspired a play. “Billboard,” by Michael Vukadinovich, uses the premise as a springboard to examine art, commercialism, love and the nexus of all three. “I had these questions about art versus advertising and how much art has sold out,” Mr. Vukadinovich said in a telephone interview. “And I wanted to explore them in the context of a relationship.” In the play Andy (Ken Matthews) is paid a lot of money to wear a tattoo on his forehead for the fictional company Questa for a year, but his girlfriend, Katelyn (Sarah K. Lippmann), is not amused. At least not until she finds a way to use it, and him, to her advantage. Joey Piscopo (yes, the comedian’s son and the creator of the solo show “Joe Piscopo’s Son”), is the goofy best friend. The show’s director, Tania Inessa Kirkman, and her design team have created a set that enthusiastically embraces commercialism by including a slew of obvious (but nonpaid) product placements, commercials for everything from Red Bull to Campbell’s Soup that play during intermission and corporate logos, made of light, dancing across the stage floor. To see “Billboard” is to be bombarded with advertising, but ain’t that America?
~~New York Times

"Billboard is a treat, due to its committed performances and earnest moments."
~~Show Business Weekly

"Winner of the 2006 Next Generation Playwriting Contest and based on a true story, Michael Vukadinovich’s Billboard makes a powerful world premiere at 59E59"
~~HX

"In 2005, a man from Omaha used eBay to auction off advertising space on his forehead and scored more than thirty-seven thousand dollars from a company selling a snoring remedy. The playwright Michael Vukadinovich has employed this odd news bit as a jumping-off point for a comic exploration of personal and corporate greed. Commercialism vs. art, big media vs. the soul of the American people—the battle lines are clearly drawn."
~~The New Yorker

". . . all aspects of Billboard amuse and the performers appeal."
~~Village Voice

"Character driven and hilarious in readings, this is the small show to catch."
~~The L Magazine

"[An] effervescent new comedy…Playwright Michael Vukadinovich was clearly inspired by news stories of young people who have sold the spaces between their eyebrows and hairlines for substantial sums. But many a dramatist has found a good idea for a play, and then not known how to handle it effectively. That’s not the case with Vukadinovich. After Andy has his forehead branded without forethought, there are ramifications to be suffered. A theatergoer may well be convinced that Vukadinovich has thought of every conceivable one. What’s especially wise is that Vukadinovich gives Andy good reasons for selling out…Katelyn will turn the play in a nicely unexpected direction that answers the question of whether art and capitalism can peacefully coexist. En route, there are spirited discussions about product placement, corporate logos on clothes and how great art is routinely used to sell junk to the masses…The audience will be pleased."
~~The Star-Ledger

Best New Play ~~ "A thoughtful and unique comedy."
~~Celebrity Sentry

Trog and Clay (an Imagined History of the Electric Chair)

Michael Vukadinovich’s droll comedy is based on intrinsically fascinating subject matter -- the first execution in the 19th century of a murderer by electric chair, and the fracas surrounding it. Much of the tale is told through transcripts of the trial of wife-murdering thug William Kemmler, a leering, tongue-wagglingly unregenerate brute who ultimately becomes guinea pig for the road test of the “chair that zaps a thousand volts.” However, the testimony also includes attempts by electric-chair proponent Thomas Edison to get the device powered by the alternating current invented by his archrival George Westinghouse, part of a Machiavellian scheme to have Westinghouse's type of electricity "branded" with death and executions…the often-surreal comic text Vukadinovich shoehorns between the courtroom sequences is smartly arch and intellectual, full of cerebral puns and philosophical repartee."
~~LA WEEKLY

"Michael Vukadinovich’s Trog And Clay: An Imagined History Of The Electric Chair may well be one of the funniest plays ever written about actual events, the ingenious playwright having turned the rivalry between electricity pioneers Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse (which led to the first ever execution by electrocution in the U.S.) into a hilarious fact-based absurdist historical farce….Most of Trog And Clay’s abundant humor comes from its titular duo, a pair who would have done Ionesco proud… Vukadinovich once again proves himself one of L.A.’s most imaginative young playwrights. You don’t need to be a history buff to enjoy every minute of this thoroughly unique and absolutely delightful evening of absurdist historical farce."
~~LA STAGE SCENE

"Based on fact and featuring amazingly absurd transcripts from the trial of William Kemmler, the first man to be put to death by electrocution, Michael Vukadinovich’s darkly skewed comedy is more about greed and lust for personal power than about the battle over capital punishment. It focuses on the rivalry between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse, who lock horns over the use of direct current, which Edison backed wholeheartedly, and Nikola Tesla’s alternating current, which Westinghouse considered the less dangerous choice and would keep his own name from forevermore being linked to the invention of the electric chair, something he believed was the goal of Edison’s endorsement. Vukadinovich tells his tale through two itinerant hobos, Trog and Clay, enlisted to trap stray dogs at a quarter apiece for Edison, who uses them in his experiments like a canine fish fry… bringing a delightfully woebegone modern-day Laurel and Hardy—or is it George and Gracie?—sensibility to Vukadinovich’s eclectic mix of characters. "
~~BACKSTAGE

A Giant Arc in the Skyspace of Directions (or The Story of Miracles)

“Vukadinovich’s writing crackles with cleverness and wit.”
~~LA Weekly

WOW! Playwright Michael Vukadinovich takes a half dozen or so Biblical characters and stands them on their ear in his lyrical, fantastical new play…Vukadinovich’s allegorical comedy is a delight from start to finish, and pretty darn moving to boot…with Vukadinovich’s unorthodox sense of humor, there are laughs aplenty, and with the rich, textured performances of the play’s five leads, there are moments when A Giant Arc truly touches the heart…It’s certainly different … in the best sort of way.
~~Steven Stanley, LA Stage Scene

Even Hitler Wrote A Book

"Hilarious...delightfully witty and entertaining."
~~Los Angeles Loyolan

Gilbert, or Death by Obituary

* * * *
"It takes something pretty special to pull off a one-man monologue in a small Fringe venue, but Michael Vukadinovich is a writer of high enough caliber to do this. This is a funny and touching dark comedy about Gilbert, an obituary writer in a town where no-one dies. It's a conundrum that is bleakly poetic, and Kevin Broberg is wonderfully adept at portraying this as our amiable protagonist.

Gilbert's first experience with death is as a child. His father, a give-it-a-go kinda guy, believes it's "always good to try and do things yourself," and this includes putting down their beloved dog, French Fry. It seems like a career as a striving journalist on the obituaries column is a natural progression for our hero. But he's unlikely to reach the heady heights of celebrity death coverage in the small American town where he lives, as people have simply stopped dying. But then Gilbert meets Nancy, an elderly apparent widow who is partial to making up stories of her own. Through an unlikely friendship, which ends with Nancy's death, Gilbert finds companionship in a way that has so far eluded him – at least since French Fry died.

Broberg has an engaging voice perfect for this kind of narrative storytelling, while Vukadinovich has a strong feeling for comic timing. The additional characters are so well-painted you forget you're watching one man perform.

The piece has the quirky off-beat feel of an American indie film in the vein of Napoleon Dynamite, so it comes as no surprise to learn that Vukadinovich studied at University of California, Los Angeles, California's centre for scriptwriting, and the show is being adapted into a feature film. It deserves a bigger audience. Go and see it."
~~The Scotsman

"Gilbert lives in a city called Town where nobody dies and works for the Local Paper founded by a good citizen called Local. With Mayor Corrupt staying off the front page, Gilbert is determined to get the ultimate scoop of his first-ever obituary, but winds up with an old lady scamming him and a foul-mouthed parrot who once ran a sex phone line.

If there's one thing Michael Vukadinovich's one-man play, performed by Kevin Broberg for the Los Angeles-based Red Tie Productions, resembles it is eccentric singer-songwriter Thomas Truax's chronicles of Wowtown, the imaginary back-woods enclave watched over by a dog called Al Camus and documented in assorted radio broadcasts. Vukadinovich's piece is a charmingly laconic and off-beat affair that taps into the minutiae of some less explored column inches with a skew-whiff warmth that's both affectionate and infectious."
~~The Herald (Glasgow)

Michael Vukadinovich, an American playwright, wrote this refreshing little blast of whimsy, which centres on the sad case of an obituary writer who lives in an area where people don’t die.

Gentle absurdity is the dominant style here. Gilbert lives in a place called Towncity, which is run by a Mayor Corrupt. His campaign promises don’t exactly pander. “I won’t kill you in your sleep,” he promises. “Even the Kennedys couldn’t promise you that.”

The heart of the story is the relationship between Gilbert and a woman facing her own death. Mapped with quiet, poetic touch, their scenes together have the offbeat comic tone of an indie film like “Juno”. Little of what she says is true, but the stories she tells reveal everything.
~~The Economist

The Magician and the Memory

"A couple with quintuplet babies quarrel about the husband's Peter Pan complex. With elements both touching and funny, the husband dabbles in his childhood dreams while the wife pleads for adjustments in their lifestyle that would rid them of the leak-catching buckets in their living room."
~~LA Monitor

Misconceptions

"Michael is a very talented writer and it is a pleasure for me to be helping the next generation of creative artists. In fact, I plan to purchase the first two tickets to the premiere of this fabulous play."
~~Sidney Sheldon

Interviews/Stories

Orlando Sentinel

Edfringe

LA Stage Blog

Director Tania Inessa Kirkman and co-producer Colin Young discuss Billboard with Michael Criscuolo on nytheatre.com. Listen here. (14:35)