MERCY KILLERS to Play University of Utah

In partnership with the University of Utah School of Medicine's Division of Medical Ethics and Humanities, UtahPresents brings the powerful one-man play Mercy Killers to the Eccles Auditorium at the Huntsman Cancer Institute. Mercy Killers, written and performed by Michael Milligan and directed by Tom Oppenheim, will be performed on Friday, November 6 at 7:00 PM, with a talkback following the performance. Tickets are $20, with a $5 ticket for U of U students and a $10 ticket for non-U students and youth 18 and under, and are available at 801-581-7100 or utahpresents.org.

Prior to the public performance, Mercy Killers will be performed privately for medical students at the University of Utah. Michael Milligan, the playwright and performer, will also join second-year medical students in the "Layers of Medicine" course to discuss questions of health care access and end-of-life decisions raised by the play. In addition, he will meet with Dramatists Guild members at Salt Lake Acting Company and with College of Fine Arts students involved with the ArtsForce program to talk about the life of an "actor warrior," using his craft and art in service to communities and to contribute to positive social transformation.

A free lecture that is open to the public will also take place in conjunction with the play. Dr. Linda Ganzini, professor of psychiatry and medicine at Oregon Health and Science University, will speak on "The Oregon Death with Dignity Act: Why do Patients Request Assisted Death?" on October 29 at 12:00 PM at Alumni Hall (room 2600) in the Health Sciences Education Building. More information is available at utahpresents.org and at http://medicine.utah.edu/internalmedicine/medicalethics/.

Winner of Edinburgh's "Fringe First" award, Mercy Killers is in the tradition of American playwrights from Arthur Miller and Clifford Odets, to Tony Kushner and Anna Deavere Smith in capturing political and social reality in powerful story and unforgettable character. The play is the emotional journey of "everyday American" Joe, a man who fights for his wife's life using every resource, personal and otherwise, he can muster. Caught in a life and death struggle with the health care system, Joe finds the bedrock of his life, marriage and self-identity shifting under him.

Michael Milligan is a performer who has been writing and acting for the theater for almost two decades. In addition to Mercy Killers, Milligan's other produced plays include Heroine, Urgent: Aliens, and a musical adaptation of Aesop's Fables for Circle in the Square with composer/rocker Joziah Longo of Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams. A reading of Milligan's verse play, Phaeton was presented by the Harold Clurman Theater Lab featuring Mark Rylance, David Hyde Pierce, and Joanna Lumley. The play was later presented by conservatory students at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting and as a part of the NYU graduate acting program's 'Studio Tisch'. His adaptation of Jack London's The Sea Wolf has undergone several workshops and readings.

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