Michael Peter Bolus, Ph.D., received his Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Drama from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinema and Television, his Master’s Degree in Creative Writing from Boston University, and his M.Phil. and Ph.D. in Theatre Studies from the City University of New York Graduate Center. He was also awarded a Playwriting Fellowship from the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre where he spent a year in-residence, working closely with 1992 Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott as Playwright, Director, and Dramaturg.
Since 2014, he has been the Department Chair of the Liberal Arts Program at The Los Angeles Film School, overseeing and mentoring a dynamic, diverse, and multi-cultural faculty, staff, and student body, while simultaneously managing the Department’s multi-million dollar budget and cultivating both community-based outreach programs and an array of international initiatives. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Film Studies at Santa Monica College, which leads California’s 112 community colleges in transferring students into the University of California system. His current areas of specialization are Film Appreciation, Film History, Film and Society, Aesthetics and Film, Screenwriting, and Acting for the Camera.
He currently teaches Film History, Film Appreciation, and Screenwriting at Santa Monica College. He has also taught Ancient Greek Theatre, Major Playwrights Seminars, and Introduction to Theatre Studies at N.Y.U.’s Tisch School of the Arts; Critical and Historical Studies in Film, Film and Society, Screenwriting, Aesthetics and Culture, Historical Archetypes and Mythology, and Directing Labs at The Los Angeles Film School; Fiction, Poetry, and Playwriting at Boston University; English at City College of New York; Theatre History and Acting at both Brooklyn and Hunter Colleges in New York City; various seminars and workshops as Guest Artist at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine; he has also lectured internationally at the Beijing Film Academy and Kede College in mainland China.
Michael is the author of Aesthetics and the Cinematic Narrative: An Introduction (Anthem Press) and The Light in the Dark: The Evolution, Mechanics, and Purpose of Cinema (Cognella Press) and his Chapter, “Fortune’s Knave: Sex, Politics, and Machiavellian Doctrine in William Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra” will be published in the upcoming anthology Playing Shakespeare: Monarchs and Madmen (Peter Lang Press).
His articles, interviews, and criticism have appeared in the scholarly journals Theatre Journal, Theatre Survey, Slavic and East European Performance, Newsweek (Japan), The Montreal Review, and Modern Mask, and his poetry and prose were featured in the e.e. cummings Pre-Centennial Tribute.
Michael was the Artistic Producing Director of the Manhattan-based theatre company, Meanstreet, where his responsibilities included play selection, casting, directing, budgeting, grant-writing, fundraising, assemblage of respective creative teams, and a wide variety of additional managerial and administrative tasks.
Pound of Flesh, his most recent stage play, received its world premiere at the Berkshire Theatre Festival, and was subsequently produced under his direction at the Edinburgh International Theatre Festival, The Odyssey Theatre Ensemble in Los Angeles, and the Taos Center for the Performing Arts. His plays Attic People, Hats Canes Trunks Trains, West of Canaan, Shaman in the House, and Ex Machina, have been seen in productions, workshops, and readings throughout the country.
Michael has directed numerous plays in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, and Washington D.C., and wrote and directed the short films, Sullivan Street (Cannes Film Festival Shorts Corner), An Idea for the Killing, and directed the short film Importance of Ernest.
As an actor, his television credits include guest-starring and co-starring roles in NCIS, How to Get Away With Murder, Law and Order, Law and Order: SVU, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, Law and Order: Los Angeles, Strong Medicine, Swift Justice, Sidney Lumet’s 100 Centre Street, The Eleventh Hour, and J.J. Abrams’s Undercovers. His film credits include co-starring roles in Woody Allen’s Sweet and Lowdown, Bleach, Bury the Evidence, Sam Raimi’s Drag Me to Hell, and Dolemite Is My Name starring Eddie Murphy. His stage credits include The Seagull (directed by Anna Deavere Smith), Sunshine (directed by Joe Brancato), and a variety of roles in such plays as The Country Wife, The Taming of the Shrew, Under Milkwood, The Imaginary Invalid, The Cherry Orchard, and True West, to name just a few.
For more information, please visit: www.michaelpeterbolus.com
The smell of cedar and olive oil
Tornadoed through the sun-glazed room,
The worn cotton curtains
Rhythmically flapping,
Bidding farewells.
A set of rusted keys,
Loosely fastened
By a fraying length of twine,
Rested inconspicuously
In a pine box
On the lone shelf
Above the black stove.
Cheese, olives, ripe tomatoes,
Cucumbers and warm bread
Were passed round
The well-veined table
While the old man
Sat in the corner
Gently humming
A centuries-old chant
In between thorough pulls
On a hand-rolled cigarette.
He thought of the gray steel padlock
Proudly securing
The now-forbidden home
Tauntingly visible
From the river’s west bank.
It would be dark soon,
Evening’s cool breezes
Bearing relief,
Escorting him,
Swiftly and boldly
Toward his beloved sleep.
Poetry in this post: © Michael Peter Bolus
Published with the permission of Michael Peter Bolus