Michael was born on Feb. 4, 1971 in Oakland, California. He has been singing, dancing, acting, directing and choreographing since junior high and has alot of experience in theatre. He is very active in plays in the Oakland area and in 1991, he and fellow UCLA students form the Buffalo Nights Theatre Company, where he acts, choerographs and does some additional staging. He had a recurring role on "Life Goes On" as Ray Nelson. He appeared in several episodes of "Hull High" and guest starred in "Sweet Justice" and "Under Suspicion." He can be seen in the feature films "Chaplin", "Forever Young", and "Leaving Las Vegas" as well as his role as Skittery in "Newsies". He played the lead in the TV movie "The Flood" and he won an Emmy for Best Supporting Actor in 1994 for his performance as David, in "David's Mother."

He can still be seen on "Party of Five" as Justin Thompson, a role that was supposed to last a few episodes, but because of great fan support, he was made a series regular until a few seasons ago. He still guest stars on the show a few times each year.

For the past 5 years, Mike has been working with Malboror Productions to make short independant films. He just recently finsihed "Oakland Underground", a comedic mock documentry about a film crew that is making a documentry about Oakland. They discover an underground cult and get caught up in it. It will hopfully be hitting some film festivals later this year. Coming up for Michael are 3 or 4 more directing projects, including "Beatrice", which he has been working on for years. He just finished filming "Do Not Disturb" with Denis Leary, William Hurt and Meg Tilly. In it, he plays a Marilyn Manson spoof and it will be out this fall. He also recently finsihed "Her Lonely Lies", another independant film.

In May, he choreographed "Reefer Madness", a play based on the 1940's propaganda film about pot. It was written by Mike's friend and assistant director on "Party of 5", Dan Studney, and it stars Christian Campbell, Neve's older brother.

This summer, Michael headed over to Italy for a few weeks to do a play. More information to come.

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