Hi, I'm Michael
I am a Chicago-based voice artist with over 20 years acting and storytelling experience in a variety of voices. As a writer, performer, storyteller, audiobook producer, volunteer, and activist who uses a wheelchair, my work challenges assumptions about disability one character at a time. I have provided voiceover or narration for documentaries, audiobooks, poetry, IVR, and have been a performer on the Small Fish Radio podcast for over five years. In my first audiobook I played 20 different characters!
Explainer videos -- Commercials -- Podcast Intros/Outros -- Voicemail -- I'll do anything requiring a voice! Have a listen!
I love a great story
After recovering from graduate school, I got back to writing, and found short plays and monologues were a perfect fit. I like to see how the similarities between the non-able and able worlds are stronger than the differences. In The March, I talked about explored the social activism of pub crawls in wheelchairs on Rush Street. My monologue Harley Story relates how the fantasy of the open road contrasted sharply with getting my driver’s license. In Spy Story, I answered the much-asked “What happened to you?” with a noir story of international espionage. I try to show “there’s more than meets the eye to living with a disability.”
Voices by design
If you can suggest it, I'll try it. A shy guy on a first date? A cranky wizard? A benevolent barman? A dragon with a cold? A disgruntled mad scientist?
I have a home studio equipped with a Rhode NT 1 microphone and use Adobe Audition for my recording and editing.
You can hear samples of my acting and character work at www.smallfishradio.com