A Shakespearean Actor Prepares
“Geared to actors studying and performing Shakespeare, the instructional and conversational text is also appropriate for nonactor Shakespearean fans.
Both Brine and York smoothly blend together their considerable experience and expertise through practical commentaries on language, verse, and soliloquies and an intriguing chapter on Stanislavsky, from whose seminal acting text, An Actor Prepares, the title is taken.”
-- Library Journal
With philanthropist Helene Galen at the Rancho Mirage Writers Festival, January 2015
books
The Readiness Is All: My Odyssey of Healing from Mayo Clinic to John of God
Publication date: Fall 2017
Here are some preliminary reviews for this forthcoming book:
“What an important and inspirational book you have written, one that is much more than one brave man's encounter with disease. It is a story of modern medicine and belief. Your hopeful, healing message resonates with those who look to the miracles of modern medicine for cure and those who look to the soul for hope. It will touch millions.”
—William A Haseltine PhD, President, Access Health International
“This book is extraordinary, Michael. I was astonished by your journey and how you managed to survive it. Your ferocious determination to conquer amyloidosis is nothing short of heroic. Your descriptions are stunning and harrowing. You write so candidly and vividly of your stem
cell transplant and the doctors at The Mayo Clinic who supported your decision to go ahead with it. When you are in South America near the end I was astonished by the beauty of it. Because it is beautiful, even as it is horrifying. I was brought to tears when reading about how Pat lovingly
tended to you all through the night when you were unconscious with fever during your detox. This book is so vital. It is so groundbreaking because of your willingness to embrace all possibilities. Your experiences at the Mayo clinic and then in South America with John Of God are utterly fascinating and so totally disparate, and yet each were clearly necessary for you to purge this deadly illness from your system.”
—Alyssa Donati, Novelist, New York City
Click this link to download the Preface to Michael's book, and sign up to be notified when it is published, and how to obtain it.
Michael York: Accidentally on Purpose
an autobiography
Order the eBook version of Michael's autobiography directly from:
dleAre My Blinkers Showing? Adventures in Filmmaking in the New Russia
By Michael York
Published by Da Capo Press, 2005
He was the raging, youthful Tybalt in Franco Zeffirelli’s classic film Romeo and Juliet. He was a divinely decadent foil to Liza Minnelli’s divinely decadent Sally Bowles in Bob Fosse’s Oscar-winning Cabaret. And he won over an entirely new generation in the Austin Powers movies.
Now Michael York is off to make the biggest independent film in Russian history—in the capitalist Wild Wild West that is today’s Russia. York is co-starring alongside the 300-pound, 6-foot-6-inch Russian bodybuilder Alexander Nevsky (think Arnold Schwarzenegger) in an action film called Moscow Heat. With a self-deprecating wit reminiscent of Charles Grodin in It Would Be So Nice If You Weren’t Here, an eye trained on the imponderables of day-to-day life (especially in faraway places—what on earth did the hotel’s laundry list mean by the mysterious men’s garment it called blinkers?), and with an increasingly alarmed sense of how the new Russia, for all its capitalist trappings, is becoming ever more like the old Russia under an ever more autocratic government, Michael York has crafted a deliciously readable insider’s account that transcends genre.
There’s much here to be found about the actor’s craft, much to be found about Russia then and now—but most of all there’s the singular pleasure of being in the company of a witty and delightfully articulate observer of people, places, and the remarkable adventure called moviemaking.
A Shakespearean Actor Prepares
By Adrian Brine and Michael York
Published by Smith and Kraus, 2001
A Shakespearean Actor Prepares reveals Shakespeare’s own keys to acting and the art of the theater.
Finalist: Independent Publisher Book Awards
Hardback version: Stage and Screen Book Club
Reviews:
“A triumph… the most illuminating study of the dramatist since Granville Barker’s Prefaces. It deserves to become a classic.”
-- Jonathan Cecil, The Spectator“This is the book that I and my colleagues have been awaiting many long years. A Shakespearean Actor Prepares will likely become the definitive book on this topic.”
-- Ronald G. Shafer, Professor of English at Indiana University of Pennsylvania“Theater professionals and theater lovers will find this an invaluable addition to their Shakespeare library.”
-- Louis Fantasia, Director, International Shakespeare Globe Center, London“This book is indispensible for actors and directors, students and teachers, at all levels of expertise, who engage in staging Shakespeare’s works in any venue.”
-- Kay Stanton, Shakespeare Specialist and Professor of English Literature, California State University, Fullerton
Dispatches from Armageddon: Making the Movie Megiddo ... a Devilish Diary!
By Michael York
Published by Smith and Kraus, 2001
Michael York takes you on a thrilling journey to the hidden world of moviemaking, where stars people the scenery and every day is an adventure. Witness the day-to-day drama behind the drama and have access to Hollywood as you’ve never seen it before.
Through the senses of this acclaimed actor, producer, and author, you’ll learn what it takes to make a movie from start to finish. From the moment the cast meets for the first time to the final day of shooting, you’ll be there for the joys, the pains, and everything in between. Join York as he travels from Los Angeles and the California desert to Rome and the Italian countryside, revealing in Dispatches from Armageddon: Making the Movie Megiddo the world of Hollywood you won’t see in the movies.
Accidentally On Purpose
By Michael York
Published by Simon & Schuster, 1993
This is the story of a love affair with the most capricious of professional, a rare glimpse of the glory—and grit—off camera and behind the scenes.
It is also the story of a life as rich with drama and poignancy as the many roles this classically trained actor has brought to the screen and state. York writes movingly of his marriage to photographer Pat McCallum, a happily-ever-after romance played out against an ever-changing backdrop of exotic locales. And he tells of the kaleidoscope of friendships—with Tennessee Williams, John Gielgud, Derek Jacobi, and Cary Grant, among others—that his talent and travels have brought him.
Accidentally on Purpose mines rich seams of experience, bringing to light the creativity, humor, and excitement that are the true repertoire of this modern-day “traveling player.” From the dimming of lights to curtain down, it is a memorable performance.