Michael Hollick is a veteran Broadway actor, award-winning voice performer, and passionate educator with a decades-spanning career across stage, screen, and interactive media. He is best known for his starring roles on Broadway in Tarzan, Jumpers, and currently The Lion King, as well as his groundbreaking performance as lead character Niko Bellic in Grand Theft Auto IV, a video game for which he provided both voice and motion capture—earning him a Spike TV Video Game Award for Best Performance and contributing to the game’s record-breaking $500 million launch week.
Off-Broadway, Michael was an original cast member in the international phenomenon De La Guarda and its follow-up Fuerza Bruta—Argentinian immersive theater experiences that took him around the globe and cemented his reputation as a dynamic physical performer. His regional credits include roles at the Wilma Theater, Goodspeed Opera House, Pittsburgh CLO, and Great Lakes Theater Festival. On television, he has appeared in Law & Order, Sex and the City, Guiding Light, and Hawaii Five-0.
Now based in Mountain Lakes, New Jersey, Michael is deeply involved in local arts education. He is a proud father of two children in the Mountain Lakes Schools and runs an annual summer Theatre Camp for elementary students. He also works closely with the casts of the Mountain Lakes High School productions, mentoring the next generation of performers and creators with the same dedication and craft that have defined his own career.
Michael currently visiting Havre de Grace to guest direct the Opera House’s 2025 Broadway Experience production The Mystery of Edwin Drood and has been gracious enough to sit down with me for Mark on the Arts in my first celebrity interview to talk about his career, his show, his cast, and his thoughts on the art of theatre as a whole.
Michael, welcome to Maryland and thank you for talking with us today. Tell us a little about yourself. Where you’re from, what your path to here has been, how did you get your start? What is your background in theatre. How did you start?
I grew up on the Eastern shore of Maryland, in Caroline County, Greensboro. Then we moved to Northern Delaware in my high school years, to Pike Creek near Wilmington. We went to St. Mark’s High School in Wilmington, where I had wonderful theatre teacher named Dave Patch, who was a real inspiration to me. During my sophomore year I had a ballet teacher named James Jamison who owned a ballet school in Wilmington (The Academy of Dance). He was a very interesting figure who was foremost in the field of Scottish Highland dancing. He was the Michael Jordan of the Highland Fling, as well as an incredible ballet dancer. He taught ballet, and also danced and taught at Boston Ballet. He advised Agnes de Mille on the Highland Fling sections of Brigadoon. He was also elected to serve on the NEA with George Balanchine and Agnes de Mille. He was a really incredible person. He was well into his late 70s when he found me in a show my sophomore year of high school and told me, “You have some talent, but you need to learn how to move. Do you want to come to my school?” He was a very influential figure in my life in dance.
At the same time, a friend of a friend’s mom managed the ushers at the Playhouse Theatre at the Hotel Dupont in Wilmington. She asked me if I’d like to be an usher and see all the shows, and I jumped at the idea. I would basically finish school, finish wrestling practice, run to The Academy of Dance, take ballet class—me at 15-16 in my wrestling warm up at the barre with these incredible 10-11 year old, very serious dancers, many who would go on to filter into the Boston Ballet and other major programs. Then I would take a second class with older girls that was a partnering class and you talk about intimidating! Then after dance I would rush to the Playhouse Theatre and usher the shows.
When I graduated from high school, I had a friend of a friend who went to college at Carnegie Mellon and he was kind of legendary figure in town. So from the time I was a freshman, I wanted to go to Carnegie Mellon University. The summer before my senior year I went to the summer precollege program there and had a really great time . I had family in Pittsburgh and stayed with them off-campus. At the end of the program, we had auditions, around 250 students there for the summer, and four of us were offered early acceptance. So that was really exciting, knowing that I got into my dream school.
I spent four years there and it was incredibly challenging. It was exactly where I was meant to be and I was very fortunate, because it doesn’t always work out that way. But I met wonderful friends there who I am still friends with today and, I learned what I needed to learn to go into the industry.
Upon graduation, we did a showcase presentation for agents, casting directors, and producers. I got my first agent out of that show, Bill Timms. He passed away sadly during Covid, but he helped me and supported me as friend and a mentor and was another huge figure in my life. He really helped me craft a career. I did a lot of regional theatre early, worked at The Goodspeed Opera House, then the Berkshire Theatre Festival, and the Wilmington Theatre in Philadelphia.
Then I got involved in a show called De La Guarda, which was an off-Broadway show, an experimental theatre piece from a group in Argentina who came in and set the theatre world on its ear. This is in 1999 and I went on to do the show for 6 years. It was a wonderful experience. It was very creative and very athletic. It was an aerial theater piece. It was so demanding, when they conceived the show, they thought there was no possible way to run it 8 shows a week. There were a lot of technical considerations, and the aerial aspects, and they just didn’t think anyone’s body could handle performing the show 8 shows a week. I did the show for almost 6 years and would have continued doing it if it had not closed. It’s funny you have these ideas of how you expect your career to go, and you want to do TV and pictures, and never once did I think i’d get involved in this aerial show. But also it was a huge fork in the road the led me to a whole new world, a world that was very outside of the box, not conventional or traditional theatre.
How did you transition into directing?
Well, I grew up doing conventional musicals at places like the Pittsgurgh Civic Light Opera, and I always loved it and always will. But having that experience with De La Guarda allowed me to view conventional musical theatre through another prism, another lens, that made me a stronger actor, artist, and performer. It opened my mind and that is where I first started thinking about directing and writing. I write music and have written some shows and cowrote a few others. I love collaborating and love how my career has developed. The more experience I’ve gained has allowed me to be better at seeing the bigger picture. And the seeds of wanting to be a director started there, with that experience of being outside the box. There are many ways to create and express yourself or an idea. After that I wound up doing more aerial theatre and started directing aerial theatre for big corporate clients for events—there’s a lot of money in that—and aerial theatre is starting to develop in other shows outside that arena.
How did you make it to Broadway?
Right about that time is when aerial theatre started to move on to Broadway. My contacts from of De La Guarda were brought in to work on Disney’s Tarzan. The creators of De La Guarda designed the aerial elements of Tarzan. So I auditioned for that and was cast. My “in” for the show was my aerial experience, but because of my conservatory training, I was able to understudy the roles of Kerchak [Tarzan’s ape father], Prof. Porter [Jane’s father], and Clayton [the Disney villain of the piece]. I also played Tarzan’s human father at the top of the first act, which had this exciting and unique aerial opening to the show.
I remember that. That was really innovative and exactly like the animated scene in the film. So cool that I actually remember some major reviews mentioning it as a highlight.
Later, I ended up taking over for Clayton at the end of the run. I had a great time in my first Broadway show. I also did a show called Jumpers written by Tom Stoppard. It was a revival from the West End with Simon Russell Beale, and in the show there is a troupe of professors who have their own gymnastics club. They do flips and tricks and it’s very funny. I played a jumper (a member of the club), but there was a segment at the end of the show where I played Lord Greystoke, so the Tarzan theme keeps running through my career. The chance to work with Simon Russell Beale and Tom Stoppard was incredible.
I didn’t know about Tarzan, but my understanding is the bulk of your professional work has been involved with years working for Disney and The Lion King in particular? I know from acquaintances that working for Disney is a very different and definitive experience. Tell me about that.
As a New York actor I did a lot of the Law and Orders and Sex and the City, guest starring on major TV shows which, as a young actor, was fun and super exciting. And then about 15 years ago, my career found The Lion King and The Lion King found me. It was interesting. My agent got me an audition for the Scar stand-by and I booked it. At the time I had just got back from Sacramento. I had been out of town for two years. My wife had been hired to be the sideline reporter for the Sacramento Kings basketball team in the NBA. That was fun, then we came back New York. I was just getting plugged back into the New York acting scene and having some success in television. My agent didn’t want me to do it, he thought things were happening for me. Little did he know my wife was pregnant. When he found out, he said, yeah, go do Lion King. Knowing me and the type of performer I am—working hard and representing myself well is a hugely important to me—he knew I’d be with the show for a while. I started in the Las Vegas company, when my son was born 7 weeks early, maybe only my 3rd of 4th time doing the show. I was in the makeup chair and someone rushed to me with my phone and it was Angie. Her water had broken and she’s at the hospital. She said the doctor said all was good and it was going to take a while, so go and do the show and come after it.
Please tell me you went to the hospital in full Lion King makeup like Ricky Ricardo did when Little Ricky was born on I Love Lucy.
I did! The Scar I was understuding had lost his voice so there was no way he could do the show, so I went on. Little did they know that it wasn’t going to be a long night. It was a what they call a precipitous pregnancy, which means things happened really fast. So I left the show and rushed to the hospital out of costume but in full lion make up.
That is the best. I love how that episode happened because in real life Lucy was pregnant with her daughter Lucie—the first time a pregnancy and deilvery every happened on TV—so this was very much “Circle of Life” in Lion King-speak. Life imitating art imitating life.
Exactly, and that’s how we got started with our family. I was in Vegas for two years, then they eventually moved me to the tour and my daughter was born. It was a long tour, almost six years, a different city every month. There we were driving around in our little Honda Odyssey packed to the gills and it was a magical time for us as a family. Before they started school, I got to spend all day with my kids, then go to work at night. We got to see the country, and when they were about school age, they moved me to Broadway. It was very exciting.
You run a children’s theatre. Where is that and what drew you to that with the busy path you’re on?
When I booked the Broadway company, we moved to New Jersey. It was when we were there that this desire to direct took shape. It had always been in the background. When I was on tour, there were some universities who would ask if we would come and do master classes, so I did a lot of teaching in that aspect. But when we moved to New Jersey, I decided I wanted to start a children’s theatre program. It was important to me for my kids to have that experience. It was important for me to be of service to my community and the kids in my community. I love theatre and believe in theatre as an instrument of change. I believe in theatre the more that I do it and teach it and direct children’s programs. With all the division in our society right now, what is the antidote? For me it is art, and in particular, theatre.
Looking back through history, all the greatest civilizations in the world have had rich theatre histories. Story telling is practice for life. Theatre is literally walking in someone else’s shoes, building empathy, collaborating, learning how to work with others in a respectful way, how to bounce ideas off each other in a respectful way. It’s really practice for life, in a way with these archetypal stories that are passed through the years that we repeat them, learning how to to coexist peacefully with others and become better human beings. I believe in science and math and all these important studies, but it is equally important to understand that theater is the one subject that has applications in every aspect of your life. The ability to think creatively outside the box will enhance the work you do in math and science. On top of that, whether you are working in a Fortune 500 company, or as a bartender in a local restaurant, the ability to interact with your coworkers and clients and community in a way that is respectful is invaluable. You learn how to deal with them in an empathetic way to get what you need. Not in a manipulative way, but in a way that helps us all. At the very least I know how to navigate the relationship with coworkers and keep my job, and maybe do a better job.
I’ve reviewed two national tours of The Lion King and checked to see if you had been involved in either. You weren’t. But what I was impressed by most, besides how still beautifully poetic, multi-leveled, and multi-media the storytelling still is—costumes become sets becomes choreography, more “Circle of Life” themes—was the loyalty that Disney had to prior cast members and cast members to the show. Most of the leads on those recent tours had 4-6 other Broadway and international company credits on their resumes. Has this been your experience with the company?
I really am grateful to the people at Disney, from Julie Taymor on down, everyone I have come in contact with there. It as been a really healthy and supportive experience for me. They reward hard work and loyalty. They reward people who simply come to work, clock in, and do their job. It seems to be an antiquated notion but it’s not. I’m on a year-to-year contract with them, and I never take my job for granted because of that. I come in every day, try to do my best. My reputation is important to me. And I think they recognize performers who do that. I have so many friends in the shows that come back or have stayed there for years. The community we are part of is very special. Especially the segment on tour, where we had two preschool age children, as did others And we were all traveling with our community from city to city. Disney invited all the families to the dress rehearsals. We would celebrate birthdays and holidays together. It was this incredible community that my kids grew up with.
What drew you to Drood? Do you have any past associations with the show?
Coincidentally, the first show I ushered for at the Playhouse Theatre was The Mystery of Edwin Drood. It was the Broadway national tour and the first show I had ever seen that was Broadway caliber. Jean Stapleton starred as the Princess Puffer and it blew me away. It was just an incredible show. It was ribald, and funny, and daring, and dark, and the music was haunting and incredible. The performers were so funny, and it was just sharp. They were so talented. I understood a lot from that show. I understood the spectrum of performance level and what professional was and what the goal was and feeling, even at that age, I could get there. That show was so inspiring for me. The conceit that the audience picks the ending is still a novel idea that’s still not done a lot, for obvious reasons. It’s a hard thing to pull off. But Edwin Drood was a very daring and innovative show to me.
Bambi [Johnson, producer of this series] developed this “Broadway Experience” annual event to give local actors a unique taste of what professional New York theatre is like, in an environment where their casting isn’t effected by local preconceptions, prejudices, and politics. How do you think it compares to that reality and how do you think your work advances that goal? What part of your Broadway experience are you bringing along to share with this company.
Great question. When I was first approached and this was first presented to me, I felt it was a perfect match, something I wanted to be a part of. Coming from an educational theatre background, it’s a big part of the way I direct, in an educational way. I’m also coming here to learn and collaborate with them where we all come out from the experience as better artists and better people through the material, from a deep investigation of the material. I think that my experience I’m fortunate to have—I never take that for granted—but I also realize the universe meets you halfway. I have worked hard and I am proud of that, but I’ve also been fortunate and had good luck. This industry is a competitive industry, a crazy industry, and its full of people who are way more talented than me and have not had the career I’ve had. But in the end, I’ve been able to have these experiences, and at this point in my life, it’s synthesized into a point of view, which is why I’m so eager to direct, especially coming to a community that I grew up near. It’s been a while, but I know these people. And my suspicion was, and has been confirmed, that these people are just passionate theatre people. The cast, Bambi, Barb, Katelyn, you, Bob, the ladies doing props, when you’re in this environment, living your life, living in a community that isn’t NYC, one that struggles to make theatre in an area where the resources might be slim, where the support in the community may not be a priority. For these passionate theatre makers to nudge the community is a priority, we can pull our resources and do this and the audience will love it. So when you start to get the actors and talent who are living their other lives to realize this need is part of them, they see the opportunity. They want to do a show. The need to do a show. But in this instance with somebody who is an outsider. In a way that’s good, in a way that will bring a different perspective, a different expertise, and a different level of experience. I have been so welcomed with open arms by these actors. They are eager to work and eager to collaborate and eager to move the ball forward as we rehearse. Its’ just been a fantastic experience for me that I’ve enjoyed and learned so much from them, and I hope thy have too.
One of the controversial aspects of this project in the local theatre community is the price of tickets. The argument is “Why am I paying double the cost to see the same people I work with and see in every other show here?” So, you’ve shared what you feel the participants are getting as far as a Broadway Experience for their time. What can your audience expect to get as a Broadway Experience for their investment?
Excellent. Great question. Part of the problem with theatre rfight now is that it’s competing for eyes with other media and itis always kind of behind in that. It’s the oldest of all entertainment mediums and people tend to ignore it and think there’s not much new to be seen. And nothing is further form the truth. This show in particular hasn’t been done a lot, but is a gem of a show. It offers a community, with an outside perspective, to these actors and this audience, the opportunity to create a product they would not otherwise be able to experience. And not to say it’s going to be better or worse than other theatre. I’m proud of our show and I can tell from rehearsals that these actors are incredibly talented and we are going to have a dynamite show. The actors’ enthusiasm will be infectious.
There’s some interesting ideas. Because the audience actually helps to create this show, selecting the ending that Charles Dickens never got to finish. And, for this production, we’ve been very fortunate to locate the Tony Award Winner William Ivey Long’s Broadway costumes from the 2012 revival, previously worn by modern-day luminaries like Stephanie Block, Will Chase, Betsy Wolf, Jesse Mueller, and Andy Karl. That’s kind of exciting for the actors, and rarely the standard for local productions.
(full disclosure/self-promotion/humble brag: I am also serving as the costumer for this production)
Yes! And that is valuable to the theatre community as a whole. As far as prices, it’s everywhere. It breaks my heart that I am working on a show aimed at families where tickets are regularly $200 a pop and up. Theatre is an elitist art and it shouldn’t be that way. But it costs a lot to produce, certainly on Broadway, with the rents as astronomical as they are. That’s where it starts. Then you have all of these shows one-upping each other on the technical elements and the costs just continue to mount. But what is important are the stories, and there are so many wonderful and important stories that aren’t getting a chance to be told because they can’t find theatre spaces and they can’t find audiences. That’s why I love the opportunity to bring one of those stories here, to this community, for what in comparison is a reasonable price.
Currently I’m trying to start a second career as a television writer (another shameless self-promotion), and part of the presentation I need to use for my pitch is answering the question “Why this show, why me, why now?”. What is the benefit of telling the story of this show, why am I the one to best tell it, and why is it relevant today?” So I’d like to pose that question to you? Why Drood, why you, and why now?
First of all, I will say is it is a rip roaring good time for the actors as well as the audience, and whenever an actor is having a good time onstage, it is infectious. As much as these Victorian actors in the show are a family, and as much as they love each other, I told these actors to create their character with a massive ego. They are actors and they all want to be the murder. They want to be the one the audience votes for. This is all a big game and we want to make that fun for them and we’ll have a blast performing it. I’ve already touched on why the show is important to me, and this is what I am hoping to bring to the piece.
This is an important point and this is how it brings the piece into today. These actors at the Music Hall Royale [the “theatre” in Drood’s show-within-a-show concept], by their nature I view them and we view them as open-minded and ahead of their times as such. As I said, in the times of Dickens and the antiquated and racist points of views of that era, this core group of theatre-makers are an antithesis to that. They are working together in a bubble so when you see this show, our hero Drood has those antiquated notions and is painted with a brush unflinchingly in an unfavorable light. It is this group of actors who wrote their adaptation of Charles Dicken’s story and decided to tell it in that manner. That’s been my and our window into today. Today we can banish those antiquated notions and we can bring more inclusive dialogues into our worlds and our communities through theatre, like this troupe does. We are becoming more conscious as a community.
Interesting. And actually that thought on open-mindedness segues beautifully to one final totally random question I have on a different topic, one on which you may have an insider’s point of view.
As far as the current state of Broadway, we’ve had 46 new musicals since Covid open and only three have broken even, none from this season. But in this time where every show is vulnerable, I find the Broadway community is getting very vocal, very loud, and very toxic when it comes to cancelation culture in the business. I mean in just the last 3-4 months, we’ve had “Cancel Patti LuPone!”, “Cancel Nicole Scherzinger!”. “Cancel Maybe Happy Ending!”, “Cancel Kristin Chenoweth and Queen of Versailles!”–many over assumptions, extrapolations, or instances where facts are flat-out manipulated by the press, the potentially toxic internet fandom, and even individuals in the Broadway community themselves to escalate things simply because they know they can. In what I perceive to be a most critical time for Broadway, when the business has never been more fragile than it is now, what are your thoughts on the current ease of Broadway cancelling Broadway, as someone in the business with an invested insider’s perspective?
“Broadway cancelling Broadway”. That’s interesting, I haven’t heard it put like that before, but I think we start off, when you have a society that has marginalized people, as part of its DNA, in order to correct that, and I think you’ll find it true in a microcosm where an individual has to correct something within themselves or within a society where there are such egregious harms, a lot of times we go too far in the other diriection. It’s natural and it’s unfortunate, but it’s part of being human and correcting the dial. Balance for me is not this [Michael makes a “straight across” gesture]. It’s this [he mimics a sine wave of peaks and valleys], a constant correction. I think we are seeing, even in people who are promoting cancel culture, we are seeing awareness in those circles . Maybe we have gone too far with certain things . But I do think the benefits, not of cancel culture, but of a mindful culture, is the beginning of an inclusive culture being established and moving the ball in the right direction. Not where it has to go—we’re not there yet—but the overcorrection of cancel culture is an unfortunate side-effect. But that is what happens to a living organism, be it an individual or a culture, so hopefully we’ll eventually get to know better and be better.
That is a very insightful answer to a very sticky situation, I appreciate you weighing in on that. In closing, what’s in the future for you? Anything coming up, anything you’re allowed to talk about? What’s next for Michael?
I’ll be continuing with The Lion King and my children’s theatre program, now in our 6th season. We do that every summer. Right now that keeps me pretty busy. But you’d be amazed in this business how things pop up for me, like this experience, and I look forward to more things like this. But right now it’s The Lion King and children’s theatre.
Thank you, Michael. I’ve really enjoyed this. You’re such a positive person and a source of good energy when we need it most. And I feel certain that’s part of the “Broadway Experience” your cast and audience will benefit from too. Best wishes on the show and your career.
Get your tickets for the Havre de Grace Opera House’s production of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, running November 1-9, 2025, online.