"Michael Billingsley is surprisingly appealing and heroic as Henry;  the anti-social actions of the character almost make sense and even feel human in his hands."    -- Martin Denton,  nytheatre.com  "Seal Sings it's Song"  (3/5/05)

Backstage Features 

September 17, 2004
Six in the City, Part I  
By Wally Rubin  

Michael Billingsley  
    Sprite is a word that comes easily to mind when you see Michael Billingsley. He seems born to play Puck. He is taut, wiry, with a decidedly active sexual energy. He thinks people see him as the "young cute guy from next door, a little bit funny and fun." Yet he is drawn to characters who are "a little more rough, lower-class," like those of playwright Sam Shepard.
    Michael is a Southern boy. You can hear it in his voice. He is from Rome, Ga. As a kid, he did martial arts and was in a boys' choir. At eight, he played Louis, Mrs. Anna's son, in a local production of "The King and I."
    He played soccer at Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, but tore a ligament in his knee -- twice, which put an end to his soccer career. He hung out instead at the theatre department. After graduation, Michael got married and moved to Los Angeles. In L.A., he got a commercial agent and "did a couple of commercials," but it was not a positive experience. In L.A., "you walk in a bar, everybody stops, turns around, sees that you're nobody special -- goes back to their conversation. It feels like everybody is trying to break in, like the dentist is just doing root canal until he makes his big break." Michael admits, "It was a bad time in my life. I didn't have money. I didn't have a great place to live. I was in a bad marriage."
    He and his wife moved back to Atlanta, where he found work doing commercials. They stayed for over a year and then moved to San Francisco, where he had an agent, did theatre, and found voice-over work: "There is a lot of voice-over work in S.F. They do a lot of video games." After two years, Michael applied to grad schools and came east to the Actors Studio Drama School.
    During his three years at the school, he, along with Chantel Lucier and some others in his class, formed woken' glacier, their own theatre company, and they performed in the 2003 New York International Fringe Festival. They are currently working on incorporating and hope to put on a new production this January. Starting a theatre company isn't easy: "It's really a difficult process and we're just at the beginning stages of it." For previous productions, members of the company fronted the $3,000-$4,000 needed and were paid back from proceeds: "We broke even." For January, they believe they will need $6,000 and are working on fundraising strategies.
    Michael has the benefit of being a member of Actors' Equity. He joined last winter, buying into the union courtesy of his SAG membership: "That's an advantage I have. I go into these auditions and see other students from school there and they have been there all day waiting and I walk in and can sign up and within a half hour I'm in and out. It's very nice."
    After graduation, Michael played Puck in a production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, and then did a play at the Cherry Lane Alternative. As the Cherry Lane project was ending, though, "I started to get more and more panicked. First thing I started to do is shut everything else out, focusing all of my energy on auditioning and mailing out" his resume in order to get an agent. "That's what I do when I go into panic mode. I sit there and say nothing else matters but the work, and if I just focus on that, then everything else will be fine. It becomes insane and really difficult to live with."
    He finds auditions through Back Stage. They've been averaging two or three a week. He likes the Actors' Equity audition center: "People there are so friendly, telling you jokes and saying, 'How's it going?' It's not a showoff-type thing."
    Michael makes ends meet as a personal trainer at a gym. It's good money. "You pick up a client, and they'll say I want to do two, three days a week, and you try to match up schedules. I always enjoyed teaching."
    Michael is now divorced but has a son, Zion, who is three and lives with his mom in Indiana. Michael visits once a month.
    Within a year, Michael's goal is to have "full representation" and, within two years, he wants to be self-sustaining as an actor. He knows it won't be easy: "Before I was a big fish in a little pond. Now I'm out with the sharks."

December 10, 2004
Six in the City, Part II
By Wally Rubin  

Michael Billingsley
    When I sit down with Michael for our follow-up interview, the first words out of his mouth are, "I haven't done anything." Don't believe him. It's been a busy, if tough, fall.
    As an Equity member, he has gone on 36 EPAs. He did his first musical auditions. His initial effort was for "Ring of Fire," a musical based on the life of Johnny Cash. A Southern boy himself, Michael decided to "go in and sing a hymnal and see how it goes." He's also auditioned for the Mint Theater, New York Theatre Workshop, and a couple of times for Roundabout. He did a mass mailing to 45 SAG-franchised agents.
    Michael is busy, as well, with woken' glacier, the theatre company he started with six others, including Chantel Lucier. It recently became a member of Fractured Atlas, a nonprofit arts service organization. This will allow woken' glacier, among other things, to solicit and receive contributions through Fractured Atlas until it establishes its own nonprofit status. Woken' glacier is also on a waiting list for help from Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts.
    Michael has been co-writing and helping to produce an NYU student film in which he will also act. As its co-author, "I made sure I had the lead," he jokes. "I always wanted to get my feet wet in film and this has been a big learning experience. There are so many things I don't know about—so many technical things."
    "My other big thing is I'm running out of money," Michael says. He works as a personal trainer at The Gym on 26th and Madison, but his expenses are high, as he pays child support for his three-year-old son, Zion, whom he flies out to visit each month in Indiana—another expense. "I'm feeling a bit of a crunch in my finances. I've got to get my act together."
    He's feeling "a lot of insecurity because I'm not getting much outside validation that 'Hey, you're on the right track and you're doing good.' " On the other hand, he thinks, "Screw all of you. I'm going to make my own movie. I'm going to make my own theatre company. I'm going to do it for myself. So, in some ways, it's very invigorating.
    "I have a friend. This guy works three different jobs. He recently joined the Coast Guard Reserve and he's always telling me, 'I envy you because you know exactly what you want to do in life.' And I feel like, well, it's a curse. It's a blessing and a curse because I know that I want this and this is what feeds me and feeds my soul. Yet I really wish I could do something else. It's just getting tough right now."
    Michael wishes he had "a better hustle. You have to convince them that you are something special, something different, something better." To do that, he says, "you have to believe that yourself. And many times, it's hard for me to believe that myself."
    He auditioned for a West Coast production of "Take Me Out," and the casting person told him, "That was amazing and you were really great, but you're too short. I'm sorry." Michael goes on, "It really disappointed me because sometimes it's so nice to do a good audition and walk out and dream about it for just, you know, five or 10 minutes. But it's also a relief because sometimes you hang on to that for a couple of days, like 'Why aren't they calling me?' I don't know which is better."

June 23, 2005
Six in the City, Part III
By Wally Rubin

Michael Billingsley
    "It was definitely a lesson," Michael says about the first production of his Woken' Glacier theatre company, a group he started with some friends from the Actors Studio Drama School. The company produced "Seal Sings Its Song" at the Gene Frankel Theatre this past March. "The good news is we made money. Not a lot, but enough so we can do another, smaller production this year."
    According to Michael, "One of the biggest things we learned was we didn't do our publicity in enough time. A lot of the places tell you they only need 10 to 15 days' notice, but you really need a month, a month and a half—from basically your first rehearsal—to start doing your publicity."
    Michael performed a lead role in the play and was also the company's operations manager: "I made sure that everyone else was doing their job." His girlfriend designed the costumes. "We kept it within the family as much as we could. It's easier when you can depend on your friends. I'm very proud of us. Looking back, I feel really amazed that we did this." Still, "we all agree that we definitely need to get somebody with more of a business mind."
    Just before the production, Michael worked on a project of his girlfriend's for the NYU film program: "I'll tell you one thing that was really amazing was experiencing the cachet that the NYU film school has. Where you go to school does have weight in this city. She was able to get people to assist and donate food. She could just say, 'I'm from NYU film school,' and people were more open already. ASDS doesn't have that weight."
    Through a client at The Gym, where he is a trainer, he did a general reading for Amy Herzig, vice president of primetime casting at CBS. Michael says three of his gym clients are in the business and he has gotten some "great advice." He was also just accepted into the Actors Studio.
    This spring, he wants to "get a reel together, dump it down on a DVD, and start handing it out."

September 29, 2005
Six in the City, Part IV
By Wally Rubin