Michael Friedman, Composer of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Dies at 41 (Playbill) [x x x x x]:
Michael Friedman, an Obie-winning composer-lyricist who held numerous leadership positions around New York theatre companies, has died at the age of 41. News of his passing was announced by Off-Broadway’s Public Theater, where Friedman served as the director of Public Forum and artist in residence.
Friedman’s death on September 9 followed complications with HIV/AIDS.
As a composer, Friedman is most known for his work Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, which opened on Broadway in 2010 following workshops at Williamstown Theatre Festival and New 42nd Street Studios, plus runs in Culver City, California, and New York’s Public Theater. The musical, depicting the populist president as an emo band frontman, became a talking point in the theatre community once more in 2016 due to its thematic ties to the presidential election.
“Andrew Jackson rewrote the history of America as he was going,” Friedman told Playbill in a 2010 interview. “That’s one of the weird things about taking control of a country; you get to rewrite the narrative entirely.”
Friedman had been working on a piece that musicalized the thoughts of primary voters from across the United States during election season. Each new song would premiere on The New Yorker’s Radio Hour; the magazine had also partially funded the project. “I definitely believe in the politics of music and theatre and popular art,” Freidman told Playbill in 2016. “I certainly think they are a conduit. Art is what survives from protest movements.”
[…]
“Michael Friedman was one of the most brilliant, multi-talented theater artists of our time,” said Oskar Eustis, artistic director of the Public, in a statement. “He was also a miracle of a human being: loving, kind, generous, hilarious, thrilling. His loss leaves a hole in the theater world that cannot be filled, and a hole in the hearts of those who loved him that will last forever.” […]
theatre fact: The Fortress of Solitude & Hamilton were part of the same season (2014-2015) at the Public Theater
I saw Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson at the Public when I was in high school, and when I started working there on the usher staff, The Great Immensity by Michael Friedman was the first show I worked. I saw that show 5 times - I saw Fortress of Solitude 15. Each time I saw each show, it got better, and I saw something I had missed before. I was looking forward to so many more shows - gonna sit here and treasure the ones I have.
