Michael has written music and lyrics for the musicals The Fortress of Solitude, Love's Labour's Lost, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Saved, and The Brand New Kid, and for The Civilians The Great Immensity, In the Footprint, [I Am] Nobodys Lunch, Canard, Canard, Goose? and the long-running Gone Missing. He also wrote music for Anne Washburn's Mr. Burns: A post-electric play. With Steve Cosson, he co-wrote Paris Commune, which was produced as part of BAM's Next Wave Festival in 2012. He is currently working on shows about World War 1, the adult film industry, ice hockey, a version of Wedekind's Lulu, a version of Lewis Carroll's Alice stories, and the history of American Pop music from 1846-1923. An evening of his songs was featured in Lincoln Center's American Songbook series. His Tedx talk, "The Song Makes a Space," is available on youtube. He has been Barron Visiting Professor of Environmental Science at Princeton University, a MacDowell fellow, a Hodder Fellow, and received a 2007 Obie Award for sustained achievement.