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NEXT UP: IF MEMORY SERVES in BOSTON, NYC, AND EDINBURGh!
SOBRIETY, SEX, AND PROFOUND STUPIDITY... the horrors are indescribable, but you’ve still got to serve! And if memory serves, NYC comedian Michael John Ciszewski made a fine mess of things before getting sober.
Help him remember everything he wishes he could forget—from transformative pop culture and hookups with radical leftists to queer villainy and accidental car theft. Make new memories on the scorched earth of a gay youth quite literally WASTED in this hilarious and searingly honest hour of comedy JAM-PACKED with LAUGHS about anxiety, identity, relationships, and the inscrutable conundrum of existence!
Heralded as “absolute gay nonsense” and “hilarious and brutally honest,” IF MEMORY SERVES is the brand new, fourth solo hour from “a one-of-a-kind storyteller” that’s earned raves from critics and audiences with “its unmatched blend of pop culture, pathos, and silly queer-assery!” This August, IF MEMORY SERVES will play a full run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival with Just the Tonic, one of the UK’s leading comedy presenters.
Ciszewski has previously packed raucous, rapt houses in New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Provincetown MA, and New Jersey.
IF MEMORY SERVES is directed by Noah Simes (Sh!t-Faced Shakespeare, The Penumbra Podcast) and produced by Brian Dudley.
BOSTON
Mosesian Center for the Arts • June 12, 2024 • Buy Tickets
NEW YORK CITY
The PIT • June 14, 2024 • Buy Tickets
EDINBURGH FRINGE FESTIVAL
Just the Tonic • August 1-24, 2024 • Buy Tickets
Michael John (he/him) is a queer actor and comedian born, raised, and returned to New York City after launching his career in Boston and London.
Celebrated as “one of the most promising young actors on the Boston theatre scene” by digBoston, his acting credits include Christopher in the world premiere of Vile Isle, Ferdinand in Love’s Labours Lost, Rudy in Bent, Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Truman Capote in Holiday Memories.
Ciszewski’s solo work is rooted in queerness and healing, gleefully journeying across genres as sundry as solo performance, stand-up, storytelling, and ritual. His debut solo show Everyone is Dying and So Am I premiered in July 2019 and has since enjoyed sold-out performances in Boston and at Manhattan's Theatre Row and United Solo Theatre Festival—spotlighting the best in international solo performance. It was subsequently nominated for the festival’s audience award. His second solo project The Sun is Sleeping, a full-length film composed at the start of the pandemic era, was screened in virtual theatrical events from late 2020 into 2021 and attended by over 300 people across 5 time zones. The full project is now available to stream online. His hit third solo show Lovefool premiered in 2022 and has since played to over 1200 people in venues ranging from proscenium and black box theatres to comedy clubs and festival stages in New York City, Boston, Providence, Provincetown, Jersey City, and Philadelphia. Ciszewski has begun performing his fourth solo hour of comedy If Memory Serves throughout the northeast, performing in New York City and Boston, with an upcoming run with leading UK comedy producer Just the Tonic at the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe Festival!
Both Lovefool and If Memory Serves are available for booking now by reaching out to xomichaeljohn@gmail.com
Michael is a member of the staff of ArtsEmerson at Emerson College’s Office of the Arts. He trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and is a proud graduate of Boston University’s B.F.A. Theatre Arts program. Find him at micjcis.com—or @xomichaeljohn, wherever social media happens.
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