A work in constant progress (and occasional regress).
Born and raised in Queens, NY, Michael is a graduate of the prestigious Archbishop Molloy High School as well as the renowned music conservatory The Manhattan School of Music. Upon graduation from The Manhattan School in 1971 he pursued a career as a professional performing musician spanning the next 35 years. While still at Manhattan Michael started his professional playing career by being a frequent substitute drummer/percussionist at the long-running off-Broadway production of Jacques Brel Is Alive & Well & Living in Paris. Besides touring in the early 70s with Broadway National tours of Promises, Promises, Applause, and The Magic Show, Michael was also in bands backing Sally Kellerman, Dionne Warwick, The 5th Dimension, and Jane Olivor. Being hired as the original drummer for They’re Playing Our Song on Broadway led to the beginning of his long and rewarding working & personal relationship with Marvin Hamlisch. From 1990 until 2005 Michael was conductor and drummer for all of Marvin’s concert appearances. With Marvin’s complete & trusting support Michael embarked on a second related career as a Music Coordinator beginning in 1992. In 1993 he was Music Coordinator and drummer for Marvin’s The Goodbye Girl. In addition to contracting many film and TV score recordings of Marvin’s music, Michael was given his greatest opportunity when Marvin entrusted him with the responsibility to hire and coordinate the 63-piece orchestra for the Barbra Streisand concert tour in 1994. Michael repeated that effort several times over the next 15-20 years. Upon the closing of the Broadway production of Imaginary Friends featuring Marvin’s music, Michael chose to put away his drumsticks and concentrate solely on his burgeoning career as a Music Coordinator. Among over a hundred Broadway productions coordinated by Michael since 1993 are Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen, The Book of Mormon, Wicked, and The Lion King. (Bio courtesy Marvin Hamlisch International Music Awards)
Most data and links to images for the Movies section come from TheMovieDB (TMDB).
Additional data for Film Titles come from The Open Movie Database (OMDb).
At least one plug-in comes from IMDb.
Data are -- hey, it's a plural -- subject to the limitations of their sources. (For example, TMDB search results currently max out at 20.) I am limiting myself to free data sources for now. (No, a "free trial" is not free.)
While much of the above data are retrieved directly from outside APIs and other such sources, data from American Film Institute (AFI) and British Film Institute (BFI) were manually entered the old fashioned way into a MySQL database. Re BFI I took the following liberties:
Regarding profile removals and data corrections:
Filtering is applied here to film projects flagged as "adult" by TheMovieDB. Pending "popular demand" I am contemplating a login and profile system with preferences (such as whether to allow adult images to appear) and permissions (such as data entry).
Whereas the overall purpose of this website is to serve as a personal demo/portfolio/workshop of web and data skills, this Movies section is not meant to compete with or substitute for far more definitive movie websites.
Whether or not he still clings to an award which he won in 1986 as a film critic for his college's newspaper, Jeffrey Hartmann is not responsible for the texts of overviews and biographies supplied by external data sources.