The Lost Horizon of Michael Friedman, One Year Later

One year after the death of composer Michael Friedman, guest author Kait Kerrigan writes of her memories of him and life without his talent.

Michael would hate that I'm writing this. He would roll his eyes and ask why I wasn't spending my time writing something less reflective/more ambitious. Michael hated when things got sappy. He wasn't sentimental. He cared about big things. He saw irony everywhere. He loved the intricacies of the way a person talks so much that he set spoken dialogue to music. But even something that romantic - setting text to music - was undercut by a wit and an irony that was keen and unflinching. His heart beat for the political, for the movements, for the way people as a people might change. He would hate this.

Michael was the shiniest person in the room. He had the biggest eyes, the most explosive gestures. He knew everyone. And yet, for reasons I'll never understand, he singled me out and we became friends. Being singled out by Michael was terribly flattering. He made you feel smart. He made you feel heard. He would listen to you with bugged-out eyes, nodding along, grinning if it was funny, frowning if it was serious. And then he would whip out the smartest idea you'd heard in a month, send you down a rabbit hole with a simple question, or connect what you said with wide-ranging references. He was vociferious, unstoppable, infectious. He was the embodiment of a life force.

His emails were as immediate as they were intimate - rarely more than a single sentence. Subject: "where have you been all my life?" Body: "xo". That's the first email in the last thread I have from him. It came out of nowhere. His emails always came out of nowhere. You popped into his lightning-fast brain and he wrote to you and then a few days later, you would be hunched over a tiny table at a small out-of-the-way bar sipping vintage cocktails and talking and talking. I looked up to Michael like some older cooler cousin, the kind that you want to be, the kind who takes time to hang out with you even though you have braces and bad hair.

It's been a full year since he died. I was visiting my aunt's house at the beach when my friend Danny called to tell me. I stopped crying long enough to put my toddler to bed. I held her and held her and she didn't know why. My husband and I rushed back to the city the next day, in time for a small gathering that became an overwhelming congregation with a hole at the center of it for our friend. I kept discovering pockets of friends that I hadn't remembered were also close to Michael. It was easy to forget how many families he had created with his musicals, with the theater communities he curated, with his deep and intense gaze and magnetic wit. We wandered through The Library at The Public Theater, blankly chewing cured meats and cornichons, grateful that there were no speeches. Michael hated gatherings. He hated openings. He would have hated this. I kept thinking that. I keep thinking that.

When you picture death, you think about a body giving out. But that's not what I picture when I think of Michael. All I think about is his mind, his brain - the synapses that fired, the unlikely connections that formed. It was as if you could see his brain activity - the paroxysmal way his mind leaped. It was like watching an incredibly elegant machine operate. And now, even a year later, I don't understand how a virus can halt the elegant mechanics of a great mind. Michael never seemed like he was in his body to begin with, so how did his body giving out stop him? That probably sounds silly to admit but it's the thought that trips my own brain every time I think about him.

I've lost other friends. I've felt the hole at the center of a small community before, but it's always felt deeply personal and private. Apologies to Michael for all this sap, but my heart is not beating for my own personal loss this time. The death of my friend Michael has a butterfly effect on the people as a people of our theatrical community. I don't know how many young writers and directors and theater artists (especially women and people of color) will not be recommended for jobs because only Michael would have thought to advocate for them - and Michael advocating for you was a game changer. I don't know how many important quiet voices will go unamplified without Michael running ragged around the country recording them and turning them into songs.

There's a kind of fire azalea that's pollinated by butterflies. Smaller insects like bees don't have a wide enough wingspan to pollinate it effectively. Most of us in theater are worker bees, going from project to project, keeping our heads down. But Michael was the butterfly pollinating our impractical beautiful fire azalea garden. Our theater community is so diffuse and spread out that it takes someone like Michael - who's curiosity and perpetual energy and open wingspan of personality - to connect all of us. And so I fear we've lost more than a friend and an artist in Michael's death. My only hope is that the impact Michael had on those of us lucky enough to know him is profound enough that we will open our wings to the wider community and use our energy for the growth of our rare fire azalea garden.

Originally published as a program note for the Warehouse Theatre's production of "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson".