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Mike Daisey (born January 21, 1976
) is an American
monologist, author, and actor. His monologue ''The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs'', about the labor conditions under which
Apple
An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, ' ...
devices are made, was used as the basis for a widely shared episode of the radio program ''
This American Life
''This American Life'' (''TAL'') is an American monthly hour-long radio program produced in collaboration with Chicago Public Media and hosted by Ira Glass. It is broadcast on numerous public radio stations in the United States and internatio ...
'', but the episode was later retracted for its factual inaccuracy after it was discovered that Daisey had lied about his experiences.
Career
Early monologues
Daisey's early work includes ''Wasting Your Breath'' (1997), a monologue of the Great American Roadtrip, and ''I Miss the Cold War'' (1998), about Daisey's visit to post-Communist Warsaw and Cold War themes.
His 2001 monologue ''21 Dog Years''
[Mark Gimein,]
Mike Daisey's Apple Explanation Is ... Awkward
, Bloomberg Business Week, March 16, 2012. Retrieved March 20, 2012. was Daisey's break.
[David Ng,]
, ''Los Angeles Times,'' March 2012. Retrieved March 20, 2012. In 2002, Daisey published a book version of the tale under the same title, and in 2004 the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
aired his radio adaptation of his monologue on
Radio 4.
Daisey performed several non-traditional monologues during the 2000s. For ''All Stories Are Fiction'' (2004), Daisey made no notes of any kind until one hour before the performance, and then created a show extemporaneously onstage.
[Mike Daisey, Monologuist]
, Gothamist, April 22, 2005. Retrieved March 20, 2012. Similarly, in ''Mysteries of the Unexplained'' (2009), he performed a series of one-night-only performances, about Facebook,
bacon, and the
Boardwalk
A boardwalk (alternatively board walk, boarded path, or promenade) is an elevated footpath, walkway, or causeway built with wooden planks that enables pedestrians to cross wet, fragile, or marshy land. They are also in effect a low type of brid ...
. Daisey presented his 24-hour monologue ''All the Hours in the Day'' (2011) at Portland's
TBA Festival in September 2011, emphasizing themes of loss, transformation, and the desire for authenticity.
''Invincible Summer''
''Invincible Summer'' (2007) is about the history of the New York City transit system, loss, and democracy in modern-day America.
[Jennifer DeMeritt,]
Mike Daisey’s life before wartime
, ''The Villager,'' Volume 76, Number 35, January 24–30, 2007. Retrieved March 20, 2012.
The April 19, 2007 performance of ''Invincible Summer'' at the
American Repertory Theater
The American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) is a professional not-for-profit theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1979 by Robert Brustein, the A.R.T. is known for its commitment to new American plays and music–theater explorations; to ne ...
in
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston ...
, was disrupted when over 80 audience members from
Norco High School
Norco High School is California Distinguished School comprehensive public high school serving over 2,000 students from grades 9-12 in Norco, California, United States. It is part of the Corona-Norco Unified School District. The current principal ...
in
Norco, California
Norco is a city in Riverside County, California, in the United States. Norco is known as Horsetown, USA and prides itself on being a "horse community," with horse trails, hitching posts, and corrals, and city ordinances requiring construction to ...
, left the production mid-performance, after teachers and chaperones decided that they had heard too many obscenities. One parent approached the stage and poured water over Daisey's outline notes;
Daisey said that the destroyed papers were the original copy of the show's outline. He described the effect of the walk-out as "shocking".
[Daisey's Summer Interrupted as Audience Departs and Defiles His Work](_blank)
, '' Playbill'', April 22, 2007 Daisey later sought out and spoke with representatives of the group, including the member who destroyed his notes.
''The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs''
''The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs'' (2010) examines
globalization
Globalization, or globalisation (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English; American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), see spelling differences), is the process of foreign relation ...
by exploring the exploitation of Chinese workers through the lens of what Daisey describes as "the rise and fall and rise of Apple, industrial design, and the human price we are willing to pay for our technology, woven together in a complex narrative."
In January 2012, portions of the theatrical monologue were aired on the radio program ''
This American Life
''This American Life'' (''TAL'') is an American monthly hour-long radio program produced in collaboration with Chicago Public Media and hosted by Ira Glass. It is broadcast on numerous public radio stations in the United States and internatio ...
''. The episode, titled "Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory" quickly became the most downloaded episode in the show's history, with 888,000 downloads after two months.
Two months later, ''This American Life'' officially retracted the episode, having discovered that some of the personal experiences described by Daisey in his monologue had been exaggerated or fabricated.
A follow-up episode, entitled "Retraction", stood by the veracity of the claims Daisey had made about working conditions at
Foxconn
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd., trading as Hon Hai Technology Group in China and Taiwan and Foxconn internationally, is a Taiwanese multinational electronics contract manufacturer established in 1974 with headquarters in Tucheng, New ...
, but claimed Daisey had dramatized many of the personal details of his own experiences visiting China in his monologue. Daisey was accused of exaggerating the number of plants, people, and underaged workers he talked to, of claiming that the plant guards had guns, and of describing a worker with a crippled hand using an
iPad
The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, operating ...
for the first time as a Foxconn employee. ''This American Life'' also accused Daisey of purposely misleading them by trying to prevent them from contacting the translator he used in order to fact check his story. In an interview with host
Ira Glass
Ira Jeffrey Glass (; born March 3, 1959) is an American public radio personality. He is the host and producer of the radio and television series ''This American Life'' and has participated in other NPR programs, including ''Morning Edition'', ' ...
, Daisey admitted to giving the producers of ''This American Life'' a false name for the translator and also admitted that he lied about her contact information being changed. Daisey apologized to ''This American Life'' for allowing them to use his theatrical monologue in the "Retraction" program, and made a full apology in a statement on his website.
Since the controversy, Daisey has reformed his work and has continued to perform it, removing the five minutes of contested details and standing by his assertions that the conditions in Apple's supply chain violate China's own labor laws and remain inhumane. He has performed this new version in six cities, including a run at Washington, D.C.'s Woolly Mammoth Theater, where Apple's co-founder
Steve Wozniak joined the show for a post-performance discussion on August 4, 2012.
In 2013, solo theatre artist
Jade Esteban Estrada
Jade Esteban Estrada (born September 17, 1975) is an American singer, actor, stand-up comedian, journalist and human rights activist. ''Out Magazine'' called him "the first gay Latin star."
Biography
Born to David Gonzales Estrada and Aurora ( ...
embarked on a five-city tour of the show. "Jade Esteban Estrada knows how to draw an audience in and hold them in the palm of his hand," wrote Deborah Martin of the
San Antonio Express-News. He puts that skill to fine use in ''The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs'', a solo show written by Mike Daisey exploring the cult of tech giant Apple.
Daisey offers a complete, royalty-free transcript of ''The Agony'', which has been downloaded over 130,000 times. The work has had more than 40 productions, and it has been translated into six languages.
Post-Controversy Monologues
Performed at the Spoleto Festival, ArtsEmerson, the Cape Cod Theatre Project, and Woolly Mammoth Theater, ''The Orient Express (Or, the Value of Failure)'' (2012) is Daisey's story of the aftermath of his media scandal, and a trip he took to recreate the Orient Express, traveling from Paris to Istanbul.
''American Utopias'' (2012) is Daisey's monologue about the way that physical spaces influence people's shared goals, using modern American utopian models including
Disney World
The Walt Disney World Resort, also called Walt Disney World or Disney World, is an entertainment resort complex in Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista, Florida, United States, near the cities of Orlando and Kissimmee. Opened on October 1, 1971, th ...
, the
Burning Man Festival, and
Zuccotti Park
Zuccotti Park (formerly Liberty Plaza Park) is a publicly accessible park in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York City. It is located in a privately owned public space (POPS) controlled by Brookfield Properties and Goldman Sachs ...
and the birth of the
Occupy movement
The Occupy movement was an international populist socio-political movement that expressed opposition to social and economic inequality and to the perceived lack of "real democracy" around the world. It aimed primarily to advance social and econo ...
.
"Fucking Fucking Fucking Ayn Rand" (2013) tackles
Ayn Rand, the author of ''
The Fountainhead
''The Fountainhead'' is a 1943 novel by Russian-American author Ayn Rand, her first major literary success. The novel's protagonist, Howard Roark, is an intransigent young architect, who battles against conventional standards and refuses to comp ...
'' and ''
Atlas Shrugged'' and the creator of the
Objectivist movement. ''
The SunBreak
''The SunBreak'' is an online magazine in Seattle, Washington, founded in September 2009 by Michael van Baker, formerly an editor for '' Seattlest''.
''The SunBreaks coverage of a 2011 bicyclist fatality was noted by major conventional media outl ...
'' described Daisey's performance as being "not as viscerally worked up as he has been elsewhere".
Theatre and film
Daisey's first play ''The Moon Is a Dead World'' premiered at the
Annex Theatre in
Seattle, Washington
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region ...
on October 17, 2008. It was previously developed at
Soho Rep
The Soho Repertory Theatre, known as Soho Rep,The official website'now use "Soho", with a lowercase h, as do most articles from th''New York Times''/ref> is an American Off-Broadway theater company based in New York City which is notable for prod ...
as a part of their 2008–2009 Writer/Director Lab Readings in a workshop directed by
Maria Goyanes.
''Layover,'' Daisey's first film, was screened at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. He also stars in the feature film ''
Horrible Child'' with
T. Ryder Smith
T. Ryder Smith (born March 9, 1958) is an American actor. A native of New York state and long-time resident of New York City, he appears frequently on stage, particularly in avant-garde theatre works, as well as on TV, film, and as a voice actor. ...
, in an adaptation of Lawrence Krauser's play.
Themes
Jason Zinoman of the ''
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' describes Daisey as having "a preoccupation with alternative histories, secrets large and small, and the fuzzy line where truth and fiction blur."
[. Also her]
(jpeg) at Daisey's site.
Zinoman further expands on a common theme in which Daisey experiences "a mania in which he loses himself", in ''21 Dog Years'' and ''Invincible Summer''.
Theater itself appears in Daisey's work, in both ''The Ugly American'' (2003), about Daisey's life as a 19-year-old drama student in London, and ''How Theater Failed America'' (2008), a monologue critical of how modern theater has lost sight of its original mission.
Critical analysis of powerful men and institutions often feature in his work.
''Monopoly!'' (2005) is critical of capitalism and details the rivalry between Edison and Tesla, while ''Great Men of Genius'' (2006) profiled Bertolt Brecht, showman P.T. Barnum, scientist Nikola Tesla and Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. ''If You See Something Say Something (2008)'', critical of the Department of Homeland Security, compares it to the days of tense alert during the Cold War.
Reception
Jason Zinoman said about Daisey's work in the ''New York Times'': "The master storyteller...one of the finest solo performers of his generation. What distinguishes him from most solo performers is how elegantly he blends personal stories, historical digressions and philosophical ruminations. He has the curiosity of a highly literate dilettante and a preoccupation with alternative histories, secrets large and small, and the fuzzy line where truth and fiction blur. Mr. Daisey's greatest subject is himself."
Louise Kennedy described his monologues in the ''Boston Globe'' as "Sharp-witted, passionately delivered talk about matters both small and huge, at once utterly individual and achingly universal." Heidi Weiss in the Chicago Sun-Times has said, "Enthralling...why be a journalist when you can spin stories like these?"
While remaining optimistic about Daisey's ability to recover from the ''Agony'' scandal, Jason Zinoman, writing at Salon.com, criticized Daisey's ethics and his "defiant" insistence that the invented material was "dramatic license" rather than a lie.
Personal life
Mike Daisey was born in
Fort Kent, Maine
Fort Kent is a town in Aroostook County, Maine, United States, situated at the confluence of the Fish River and the Saint John River, on the border with New Brunswick, Canada. The population was 4,067 in the 2020 census. Fort Kent is home to a ...
, and moved to the greater Bangor area in his childhood. He grew up between
Fort Kent and
Madawaska, his family moving to
Etna when he was twelve.
He graduated from
Nokomis Regional High School
Nokomis Regional High is a secondary school located in Newport, Maine, United States. Nokomis is a public school which accepts students from Newport, Corinna, Palmyra, Hartland, St. Albans, Plymouth, Etna and Dixmont
The school principal ...
, and attended
Colby College
Colby College is a private liberal arts college in Waterville, Maine. It was founded in 1813 as the Maine Literary and Theological Institution, then renamed Waterville College after the city where it resides. The donations of Christian philant ...
in
Waterville, Maine.
Works
Monologues
*1997 ''Wasting Your Breath''
*1998 ''I Miss the Cold War''
*2001 ''21 Dog Years''
*2003 ''The Ugly American''
*2004 ''All Stories Are Fiction''
*2005 ''Monopoly!''
*2006 ''Great Men of Genius''
*2007 ''Tongues Will Wag''
*2007 ''Invincible Summer''
*2008 ''How Theater Failed America''
*2008 ''If You See Something Say Something''
*2009 ''Mysteries of the Unexplained''
*2009 ''The Last Cargo Cult''
*2010 ''Barring the Unforeseen''
*2010 ''The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs''
*2011 ''All the Hours in the Day''
*2012 ''The Orient Express (Or, the Value of Failure)''
*2012 ''American Utopias''
*2012 ''Where Water Meets With Water''
*2013 ''Fucking Fucking Fucking Ayn Rand''
*2013 ''Journalism''
*2013 ''All the Faces of the Moon''
*2014 ''The Story of the Gun''
*2014 ''Dreaming of Rob Ford''
*2014 ''Yes This Man''
*2014 ''The Great Tragedies''
*2016 ''The Trump Card''
*2018 ''A People's History''
*2020 ''Bad Faith''
Plays
*2008 ''The Moon Is a Dead World''
Books
*Mike Daisey. ''21 Dog Years.'' .
Films
*2010 ''Layover''
References
External links
Mike Daisey's (invitation only) blog*
C-SPAN ''Q&A'' interview with Daisey, April 24, 2011Kill Me Now with Judy Gold, 182: Mike Daisey
{{DEFAULTSORT:Daisey, Mike
1976 births
Living people
American bloggers
American fraudsters
21st-century American dramatists and playwrights
21st-century American memoirists
American public radio personalities
Writers from New York City
Writers from Seattle
People from Fort Kent, Maine
People from Penobscot County, Maine
Colby College alumni
Writers from Maine
People from Bangor, Maine
People from Aroostook County, Maine