Michael Yawney is Miami-based playwright/director. The play 1,000 Homosexuals is the product of a lifetime fascination with how sex and religion intersect.

In New York, he divided his time producing shows in downtown clubs, directing avant-garde theater, editing elementary school readers, writing horoscopes for Playgirl, and working as doorman in a convent.

Yawney spent two decades producing and directing theater in New York City. His productions were presented at the Dixon Place, BMI Musical Theater Workshop, HERE, and Ensemble Studio Theater. His writing appeared in Theater Week, The Out Traveller, Propaganda, and OFF.

He served as Artistic Director of Bad Neighbors, Ltd. and was a founding member the Genesius Guild. Yawney assisted Joseph Chaikin and worked extensively with Anne Bogart. He earned a BFA from New York University and an MFA from Columbia University. He studied with Mary Overlie, Eugenio Barba, Stephen Wangh, Andre Serban, and Kristin Linklater. Currently on the faculty of Florida International University, Yawney previously taught workshops for Columbia University, 801 Projects, and The South Florida Theater League.

In South Florida, Yawney’s production of Three Angels Dancing on a Needle was named Best Theatrical Production of 2007 by Miami New Times. The production later won an award Best Foreign Language Production from Brick Theater’s Pretentious Festival. Yawney was dramaturg for Camposition’s The BugChasers.

All the disparate strands of his career came together when the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts commissioned this play about religious faith, sexuality, and radical politics. Drawing on his experience with Playgirl, the convent, schoolbook publishing and the rest, 1,000 Homosexuals challenges the audience to imagine a world in which everything Anita Bryant believed about god, gay teachers, and sexuality is true.