Michael Mayer Biography

Date of Birth: June 27, 1960

Growing up gay in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. was a difficult and challenging experience for Michael Mayer. He found himself becoming obsessed with movies and in sixth grade, when he played Alfalfa in a classroom movie based on the Our Gang short films, he thought he'd entered heaven on earth. For his bar mitvah in 1973 he asked his parents for a movie camera and received a Super 8 single lens with a zoom. His first film was a dramatization of a country tune, and he gave it the same title: The Night the Lights Went out in Georgia.

Mayer studied acting at NYU and began performing onstage in New York. He soon segued into directing. Mayer brought his 2002 Tony award-winning revival (for which he also received a Tony nomination as Best Director) Thoroughly Modern Millie to London's West End. Other Broadway credits include Side Man, The Lion in Winter, the revival of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown and the Tony award-winning revival of Arthur Miller's A View From the Bridge starring Anthony LaPaglia and Brittany Murphy.

After working steadily both on- and off-Broadway as a theater director for over 15 years, Michael Mayer made his feature film directorial debut with A Home at the End of the World(2004), starring Colin Farrell and Robin Wright Penn.

Filmography:

Flicka (2006)
A Home at the End of the World (2004)