Mike Daisey

Mike Daisey wants to change the world. The monologuist is back at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company with his latest impassioned, comic-tragic screed, "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs," through April 17. His new piece, which was first workshopped at Woolly last July, is about labor conditions at computer technology companies, specifically Apple. Daisey traveled last spring to Shenzhen, China, where Apple's and other companies' hardware is made by subcontractors such as Foxconn.

Curious about which topics, people and offerings might achieve hotness in #DCTheater this spring? Here are my prognostications about what's likely to be trending onstage in the coming months: Patrick Page Since he last played D.C., as a demonically poker-faced Iago in Shakespeare Theatre Company's "Othello," Page has gone on to more floridly villainous roles, first as Broadway's Grinch and then as a cackling, ivory-tinkling Green Goblin...

Mike Daisey is a fantastic storyteller , in conflicting senses of the word. He is so earnest and persuasive that you believe him even on those many occasions when he is telling you a lie. Daisey, who has been at the center of a controversy involving no less than the elusive nature of truth, tried to defend himself Monday night in a talk at Georgetown University . By the end of the evening, he'd won me over with his self-effacing explanations....

In this year of endless divining of the will of the people, theatergoers might find especially noteworthy the contrarian outlook of playwright Henrik Ibsen, who no doubt would have considered our obsession with majority viewpoints a lot of, um, malarkey. Public opinion, he declares through his touchstone character in "An Enemy of the People," the whistleblower Dr. Thomas Stockmann, veers in the direction of self-interest, regardless of the consequences. "The majority is never right!"

The only applause line during a 75-minute public forum with Mike Daisey on Tuesday evening at Woolly Mammoth came when the theater's artistic director, Howard Shalwitz, said, "We shouldn't be apologizing for the art that Mike Daisey is capable of. " That was after what seemed like dozens of apologies for the fictions that Daisey had slipped into his billed-as-nonfiction "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs. " Even then, the clapping was scattered. Otherwise, the civil crowd filling about two-thirds of...

The apologetic phone call from Mike Daisey was a painful one, says Woolly Mammoth Theatre's artistic director, Howard Shalwitz. It came the day before the shattering news was made public, news that served to undermine the veracity of an acclaimed monologue that Shalwitz's company helped usher into being, and that was scheduled to return — triumphantly — to Woolly for a three-week run this summer. Daisey's account of the abuse of Chinese workers in the monologue " The...

A couple of months ago, the wildly popular public radio program "This American Life" aired a show that detailed the work of a performer named Mike Daisey. Daisey had been performing a one-man show in theaters called "The ­Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs," which detailed his obsession with Apple products and concerns over the way in which those products get made. A large portion of the show consists of Daisey recounting a trip he took to China, to the Foxconn factories where iPads and iPhones are built.

The public radio program "This American Life" retracted its story "Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory" on Friday, saying that the piece "contained significant fabrications. " The piece, which was broadcast in January, helped set off a protest movement that grew after the New York Times ran articles on conditions in factories that are a part of Apple's supply chain. The radio program was based on Mike Daisey's show, "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs," which ...

In the reboot of his notorious monologue , "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs," Mike Daisey sounds an alarm that now has a hollow ring. Stripped of its most powerful ingredient — Daisey's firsthand accounts of labor abuses inside a Chinese plant that makes Apple products — the piece, in its return engagement at Woolly Mammoth Theatre , remains a showcase for Daisey's remarkable skills as a raconteur-provocateur. But the necessary excision of details Daisey claimed to...

On Aug. 4, the performance of "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs" at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company will be followed by a discussion with Apple co-founder and Silicon Valley whiz Steve Wozniak and the monologue man himself, Mike Daisey. Tickets for the event start at $100. It is the most expensive ticket to see Daisey, ever. That might sound like a lot for a play and a Q&A session, but think of it this way: At the Apple store, $100 gets you basically nowhere, unless you're...

The home of Apple's late co-founder Steve Jobs in Palo Alto, Calif., has been burglarized , the San Jose Mercury News reported Tuesday. Police arrested Kariem McFarlin, 35, on suspicion of theft of at least $60,000 worth of " computers and personal items ," according to the Associated Press. According to the report, McFarlin appeared to be unaware of the home's famous inhabitants. He is charged with residential burglary and selling stolen property and is expected to enter a plea Aug. 20. A search of crime...

In the reboot of his notorious monologue , "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs," Mike Daisey sounds an alarm that now has a hollow ring. Stripped of its most powerful ingredient — Daisey's firsthand accounts of labor abuses inside a Chinese plant that makes Apple products — the piece, in its return engagement at Woolly Mammoth Theatre , remains a showcase for Daisey's remarkable skills as a raconteur-provocateur. But the necessary excision of details Daisey claimed to...

On Aug. 4, the performance of "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs" at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company will be followed by a discussion with Apple co-founder and Silicon Valley whiz Steve Wozniak and the monologue man himself, Mike Daisey. Tickets for the event start at $100. It is the most expensive ticket to see Daisey, ever. That might sound like a lot for a play and a Q&A session, but think of it this way: At the Apple store, $100 gets you basically nowhere, unless you're...

After helping This American Life sift through the monologue of performer Mike Daisey, NPR Marketplace reporter Rob Schmitz got his own look at the Shenzhen plant of Apple supplier Foxconn in southern China. Schmitz reports that 99 percent of the nearly quarter-million workers at the factory are migrant workers who are earning money for workers back home. Workers, on average, are 18 t0 25 years old. Following the assembly of the iPad through several production lines, Schmitz shows viewers how...

The only applause line during a 75-minute public forum with Mike Daisey on Tuesday evening at Woolly Mammoth came when the theater's artistic director, Howard Shalwitz, said, "We shouldn't be apologizing for the art that Mike Daisey is capable of. " That was after what seemed like dozens of apologies for the fictions that Daisey had slipped into his billed-as-nonfiction "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs. " Even then, the clapping was scattered. Otherwise, the civil crowd filling...

Mike Daisey is a fantastic storyteller , in conflicting senses of the word. He is so earnest and persuasive that you believe him even on those many occasions when he is telling you a lie. Daisey, who has been at the center of a controversy involving no less than the elusive nature of truth, tried to defend himself Monday night in a talk at Georgetown University . By the end of the evening, he'd won me over with his self-effacing explanations....

Mike Daisey says that though he's never spoken officially to the company whose labor practices he lambastes in his hit one-man show "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs," he hears regularly from Apple's army of employees. Many of them, he explains, are trying to reconcile their own values with ­Daisey's account of traveling to a vast industrial campus in Shenzhen, China, and discovering appalling conditions for the workers who assemble Apple's iPads and other products. "They come to...

A couple of months ago, the wildly popular public radio program "This American Life" aired a show that detailed the work of a performer named Mike Daisey. Daisey had been performing a one-man show in theaters called "The ­Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs," which detailed his obsession with Apple products and concerns over the way in which those products get made. A large portion of the show consists of Daisey recounting a trip he took to China, to the Foxconn factories where iPads and iPhones are built.