Michael Schweikardt (Set Designer) enjoys a successful career as a set designer for opera and theater companies across the United States and abroad. Off-Broadway productions include: Bloodsong of Love (Ars Nova), ReWrite (Urban Stages), The Black Suits (The Public Theater), The Plant That Ate Dirty Socks (Theatreworks USA), Things to Ruin (Second Stage, The Zipper Factory), and Tryst (Irish Rep). American Regional Theater Credits include productions at The Old Globe, Cleveland Playhouse, Long Wharf Theatre, Pittsburgh Public Theatre, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Asolo Repertory Theatre, Maltz Jupiter Theatre, Syracuse Stage, Virginia Stage Company, Cape Playhouse, Papermill Playhouse (South Pacific and Thoroughly Modern Millie) and numerous productions at Goodspeed Musicals including Fiddler on the Roof, Carousel, Showboat, Annie Get Your Gun, 1776, Big River, and Camelot. Michael has had the honor of designing multiple large musicals for The MUNY, America’s Oldest and Largest Outdoor Musical Theatre, productions include Into The Woods, The Addams Family, Hello, Dolly!, South Pacific, Mary Poppins and The Music Man. In addition, Michael designed over 50 musical productions at California Musical Theatre, in Sacramento, California designing new productions of classic musicals with some of the most talented professional actors and directors available, Tony-winning Broadway veterans and stars of touring Broadway, film and TV. His touring productions include Ella a musical about jazz legend Ella Fitzgerald, Motherhood the Musical and James Taylor’s One Man Band. In addition to Michael’s theater work he has also designed multiple operas including Il Trovatore, Turandot, La Rondine, and Vanessa among others. Other productions include Oklahoma! Starring Kelli O’Hara and Will Chase celebrating The Oklahoma State centennial and the American Premieres of Frank Guinness’ Gates of Gold and The Bird Sanctuary. He has been awarded multiple honors for his design work including the Broadway World Award, Carbonell Award, Connecticut Critic’s Circle Award, and the Kevin Kline Award. His work can be viewed on his website: www.msportfolio.com
PRESS:
Whisper House, by Duncan Shiek, The Old Globe, directed by Peter Askin
"There's the lighthouse, a place perched on the boundary of two worlds, a kind of way station (or purgatory) both for the ghosts who never finished their business in life, and the living who haven't figured out what their purpose is. The weathered surfaces and rusted towering spiral stairs of Michael Schweikardt's dramatic cutaway set emphasizes the porous boundaries between the humans' refuge and the great beyond (the ocean or otherwise); given the ghostly content his lighthouse is aptly skeletal."
-James Herbert. San Diego Union Tribune
"Michael Schweikardt's set is an expressionistic wonder: the lighthouse stripped of it's walls, topped by a huge light and anchored by a large spiral staircase."
-Paul Hodgins, The Orange County Register
Bloodsong Of Love - A Rock And Roll Spaghetti Western, Ars Nova, directed by John Simpkins
"The director, John Simpkins, effectively manages the traffic in the confined space of Ars Nova. One amusing touch: the small treadmill built into the nifty set, by Michael Schweikardt, on which the Musician and Banana troop with grim determination in their quest for revenge."
-Charles Isherwood, The New York Times.
"Director John Simpkins deploys his ensemble...ably, and the action unfolds with flair and rapidity, thanks in no small part to Michael Schweikardt's clever set design."
-Andy Probst, Backstage.
Talley's Folly, Pittsburgh Public Theater, directed by Pamela Berlin
"They share a magnificent world; scenic designer Michael Schweikardt has constructed a breathtaking set, one of the finest of the year."
-Robert Isenberg, Pittsburgh City Paper
"Talley's Folly, Lanford Wilson's Pulitzer Prize winning play, is an intimate, touching and humorous piece and a perfect play for the O'Reilly Theater. The set that has been built per Michael Schweikardt's design is detailed and realistic, depicting a 1944 boathouse/gazebo and dock, complete with bobbing rowboat, that have seen better days. If a set could be described as "full-bodied" it would be this one, as it fits snug and compact, but not crowded, on the O'Reilly's thrust stage. This setting, along with the fourth-wall-breaking introduction by Matt, one of the play's two characters, draws the audience in like a friendly embrace. It's clear from the start that, serene though this setting is, there's a rocky road to be traveled over the next 97 minutes."
-Ann Miner, Talkinbroadway.com
1776, Goodspeed Musicals, directed by Rob Ruggiero
"Goodspeed Musicals’ revival of 1776 was the first time I’d seen Peter Stone’s rousing salute to the Founding Fathers onstage since the original road-show version came to St. Louis 35 years ago. That production was a spectacular piece of work whose quick-change set (designed by the legendary Jo Mielziner) is still clear in my mind’s eye. I wondered how Goodspeed could squeeze the whole show onto the tiny stage of it’s 130-year-old theater without breaking something, but no sooner did the red-white-and-blue curtain go up on Michael Schweikardt’s handsome-looking version of the Chamber of the Continental Congress than I knew I was in good hands. Goodspeed’s 1776 is a masterpiece of compression, a production that more than makes up in stylishness for what it lacks in costly gimmickry."
-Terry Teachout, The Wall Street Journal
"When the curtain rises on Michael Schweikardt’s stunning diorama of a set for 1776, it’s like seeing a living portrait of a great moment from history."
-Frank Rizzo, Variety
"1776 is a bracing, perfectly pitched production at the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam. Michael Schweikardt turns the theater’s small, Victorian-era stage into a terrific asset, concentrating the action and the emotions within a Wedgwood-blue backdrop of federal columns, cornices and pediments."
-Sylviane Gold, The New York Times
Big River, Goodspeed Musicals, directed by Rob Ruggiero
"There’s no way to get to the Goodspeed Opera House from any direction without coming face to face with the grandeur of the Connecticut River, broad and beautiful as it passes the theater’s boat dock and the town of East Haddam. So pity the set designer Michael Schweikardt. With all that scenery right outside the door, he had to somehow conjure up the mighty Mississippi on Goodspeed’s small, 19th-century stage, so that those two all-American runaways, Jim the slave and Huckleberry Finn, could float their raft downstream to the music of Roger Miller. He did it. After the rough boards that serve as backdrop for the opening scenes of Big River fall away, a luminous expanse of meandering stream, grassy mudflat and open sky materializes on the stage. As lighted by John Lasiter, the painted landscape takes us through days and nights on the Mississippi that might seduce Mark Twain himself."
-Sylviane Gold, The New York Times
Barnum, Asolo Repertory Theatre and Maltz Jupiter Theater, directed by Gordon Greenberg
"But it is the entire production package, designed by Michael Schweikardt, that is the most memorable aspect of the evening. The circus will have a hard act to follow the next time it comes to town."
-Hap Erstein, TCPalm News
Carousel, Goodspeed Musicals, directed by Rob Ruggiero
“Mr. Ruggiero first got on my scope with his masterly 2007 Goodspeed revival of 1776. Since then he's directed comparably persuasive Goodspeed productions of Annie Get Your Gun, Camelot and Show Boat, the last of which succeeded in solving the nagging problem of how to present the grandest of all Broadway musicals on a small scale without making it look cheap and cramped. Mr. Ruggiero and Michael Schweikardt, who designed the sets for "Show Boat," have joined forces again for "Carousel," and once more they've brought off a miracle of creative compression. Is it possible to make an audience see a carousel without actually putting one on stage? It is at Goodspeed."
-Terry Teachout, The Wall Street Journal
The Other Place, The Alley Theatre, directed by Don Stephenson
“The verdict: It’s not often that set design gets talked about in the final evaluation of a show, but it bears mentioning here. Perhaps to offset the competing tones, blown mysteries and big overwrought but biteless scenes, Michael Schweikardt has designed a set so minimal that only one upholstered club chair graces the black box stage for 90 percent of the show. Clear bulbs hang over the perimeter of the space to flicker whenever Juliana spirals away from her lecture to a memory in the past or a scene from her future. A final scene brings a handsome looking door and some lovely rain. It’s simple and elegant and clean.”
-Jessica Goldman, The Houston Press Review
The Diary Of Anne Frank, Pittsburgh Public Theater, directed by Pamela Berlin
“The shabby claustrophobia of their attic-hideout has been brought to entirely believable life by Michael Schweikardt, the set designer, who deserves much credit for the strength of this revival.”
-Terry Teachout, The Wall Street Journal
LINKS:
The Examiner - feature article on the design of Showboat at The Goodspeed:
http://www.examiner.com/article/cotton-blossom-to-dock-on-goodspeed-stage-for-run-of-show-boat
The Day - feature article on the design of Showboat at The Goodspeed:
http://www.theday.com/article/20110702/ENT12/307029988
2015 audio interview on IN1PODCAST:
http://in1podcast.com/39-michael-schweikardt/
Backstage video tour of the set for Lost In Yonkers at Papermill Playhouse:
http://www.nj.com/entertainment/arts/index.ssf/2010/02/backstage_with_lost_in_yonkers.html
PBS video footage of James Taylor's One Man Band Tour:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/james-taylor-one-man-band-video-something-in-the-way-she-moves/155/
Quick 5 Interview with the Maryland Theatre Guide:
http://mdtheatreguide.com/2012/01/a-quick-5-with-michael-schweikardt/
Backstage video tour of the set of The Subject Was Roses at George Street Playhouse:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjBg0dZtKrU