Michael Gardner
Co-Founder of The Brick and Theater Director

Michael Gardner, Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of The Brick, has been directing and producing plays and theater festivals in New York since 1996.  In his artistic work, he frequents in subverted visions of literary classics such as As I Lay Dying, Notes from Underground, Memoirs of My Nervous Illness, King Lear, Vaclav Havel’s Mountain Hotel, Jason Craig’s The Baby Jesus Conversation, The Kung Fu Importance of Being Earnest and The Ninja Cherry Orchard.  As Co-Artistic Director of The Brick, he was one of the recipients of The New York Innovative Theater Awards'
2009 Caffe Cino Fellowship Award. In 2008, he was interviewed for a Gothamist profile. Upcoming projects include Brandywine Distillery Fire at Incubator Arts Project.

Contact: mgardner (at) bricktheater.com

Michael Gardner’s plays: 

In a Strange Room

(based on Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying)

“In A Strange Room - Top 10 plays of 2004”
-David Cote, Time Out New York

Notes from Underground

Interview with Michael Gardner
-John Del Signore, Gothamist

“In Michael Gardner's excellent adaptation of the groundbreaking novella, the Underground Man is summoned in all his scattered, sweaty psychosis.”  
-Alexander Nazaryan, The Village Voice

“Michael Gardner does a truly extraordinary job staging this production in such a tiny space. I completely forgot where I was. His adaptation utterly captures every feeling of social awkwardness, intellectual frustration, and self-pity that Dostoyevsky conveys is his novel.”
-Richard Hinojosa, nytheatre.com

“This five-part dramatic oratorio, which runs through March 22, explores the masochism of the legendary Underground Man and meshes his rancid diatribes with a soundtrack of Russian tavern songs and string quartets. Impeccably directed and adapted by Michael Gardner, this intense, 90-minute show is a must-see for adventurous playgoers.”
-Deirdre Donovan, The Brooklyn Paper

"At the 1999 Fringe Festival I saw [Robert Honeywell] perform a rather startling solo version of Dostoyevsky’s “Notes From the Underground” in almost complete darkness. There was only a small candle that drew all the attention to his face."
-Jason Zinoman, The New York Times (in a review of Every Play Ever Written)

The Kung Fu Importance of Being Earnest

“The Kung Fu Importance of Being Earnest, adapted by director Michael Gardner, cannot be termed an accurate rendition of Wilde's comedy, but it is wonderfully expressive.”
-Alexis Soloski, The Village Voice

Memoirs of My Nervous Illness

"Okay, this one's the real deal, folks: Michael Gardner's Memoirs of my Nervous Illness is the most exhilarating, engaging piece of theatre that I've seen in quite some time. More involving and interactive than any Halloween haunted house is likely to be this month—but in its way just as scary—Memoirs bombards the senses and the intellect with a precision that's absolutely uncanny; it's a wallop of theatrical daring and invention that jolts and startles and reminds you why the heck you even go to theatre in the first place."
-Martin Denton, nytheatre.com

"Michael Gardner and Brooklyn's Brick Theater have taken on the daunting tasks of not only shaping the rambling discourse of a madman into theatrical form, but boldly going where theaters today seldom dare -- into the core of madness itself. Adopter Gardner (who also directs the Brick's stellar ensemble) takes us into the very mind of madness, into the swirling storms and throbbing cacophony of Schreber's tortured cranium, and in so doing, draws us into a weirdly calm and convincing "reality" that creates a compelling allegory for these strange days in which we live."
-Brook Stowe, New York Theater Review

Brick Citations in The Press:
2004 – “Person of the Year” – nytheatre.com
2005 – “Person of the Year” – nytheatre.com
2006 – “Best of NYC” – The Village Voice; Top 5 Venues with Strange Things Onstage – L Magazine
2007  – an “Essential Secret” of New York – Time Out New York;
2008 – “Small Theater Companies with Big Ideas” – New York Magazine
2009 – Winner - The 2009 Caffe Cino Fellowship Award, “Best off-off broadway theater” – Time Out New York; “No one tops the Brick Theater when it comes to oddball concepts for theater festivals.” – The New York Times