Michael McQuilken

Michael McQuilken is a New York-based theater director, filmmaker, and musician.

Born and raised in Beaverton, Oregon, McQuilken moved to Seattle, Washington in 1997. He began creating fringe theatre while earning a living as a street musician on a homemade junk drum kit. His avant-garde musical Ballyhoo, co-created with John Osebold, won "best play" at the 2000 Seattle Fringe Festival, and his multi-media one-man show A Day in Dignation, co-created with Tommy Smith, won him the Seattle Times' Sammy Davis Jr. Award. It was also performed at the Fringe Festivals of Edinburgh, Prague, and Amsterdam, and at PS122 in New York City.

In 2002, McQuilken began working as a sound designer, composer, and onstage musician for several productions at the Intiman Theatre, including Bartlett Sher's production of Nickel and Dimed, which transferred to the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles and earned McQuilken the 2002 Backstage West Garland Award for composition. McQuilken continued to write, score, and perform, creating Paper Airplane and Extropia with Collaborator, the Seattle art collective, the latter of which was named one of the best three shows of 2004 by Seattle Weekly. He also continued to collaborate with playwright Tommy Smith, scoring Smith's 2006 productions of The Tale at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center and Demon Dreams at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. In 2008, McQuilken debuted the album His Forearms Were Tanks Now, which McQuilken wrote, recorded, and performed on a self-made, loop-based composition and performance station called "the RIG", under the band name The Few Moments. Artist Ira Marcks drew a 50-foot illustration to accompany the album, McQuilken also played as the touring drummer for experimental folk musician Jason Webley.

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