After spending over 21 years in the entertainment industry in Los Angeles as a Live Entertainment creative executive for Warner Bros., Mattel, Inc., 20th Century Fox and (consulting) at Disney, Michael has returned to directing theatre full time. He directed numerous productions in Chicago and Los Angeles, with his Austin credits being the Alchemy Theatre’s most recent production of The Virgin Trial, Mack & Mabel (nominated for twelve B. Iden Payne Awards), Truman Capote’s A Christmas Memory, The Waverly Gallery, and Reverie Theatre’s production of Outside Mullingar presented at the Mastrogeorge Theatre. Michael has also directed the Alchemy’s staged readings of Peter and Alice, Domesticated, The Virgin Trial and a new play, The Sunflower Apostle, which he also wrote. Michael is an alumnus of Lincoln Center Theatre Director’s Lab West and has performed Off-Broadway as Whizzer Brown in William Finn’s In Trousers. He is also the author of Dorothy Parker–Story Time for Grown Ups, based upon the rebellious life and extraordinary short stories of Dorothy Parker. www.directorcooper.com  mcooper@thealchemytheatre.org