Mike Daisey—the performer and monologuist whose Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs put tremendous pressure on Apple to clean up its manufacturing act in China only to be revealed as a sham when This American Life retracted its segment based on it—is not leaving the stage just yet. Yesterday he took to his blog to take another stab at apologizing and explaining himself. In the post he says he "failed to honor the contract I’d established with my audiences over many years and many shows." more ›

Mike Daisey's stirring monologue The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs was performed at the Public Theater for what will likely be the final time on Sunday. In the wake of a nasty backlash against the show's veracity, Daisey prefaced the monologue by informing the audience that This American Life was retracting a segment about his show, which concerns the mistreatment of workers who make Apple products in Chinese Foxconn factories. more ›

Yesterday, beloved public radio institution This American Life said it was retracting its popular segment about the horrid working conditions at Apple factories in China producing various iProduct. The program was centered around the work of monologuist Mike Daisey, whose latest piece, The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, "illuminates how the CEO of Apple and his obsessions shape our lives, while sharing stories of his own travels to China to investigate the factories where millions toil to make iPhones and iPods." But TAL executive producer and host Ira Glass explained that Daisey lied to him and the TAL staff, about small and big things (like meeting a 13-year-old worker, showing a worker a completed iPad for the first time). Still, in the edition of This American Life that aired yesterday, Glass ended the program by discussing the labor issues at the factories with NY Times reporter Charles Duhigg, who says, "What has happened today is that rather than exporting that standard of life, which is within our capacity to do, we have exported harsh working conditions to another nation." more ›

Hoards of hungry gadget-heads are currently turning on their new iPads to find out that This American Life has decided to retract their recent segment on the harsh working conditions at Chinese factories making the company's toys [PDF]. The problem is that the segment, which included large segments from Mike Daisey's one-man show The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, "contained numerous fabrications." In other words: Yet more good news for Apple, whose stock is currently trading over $580 a share. more ›

Tonight Nightline will broadcast a segment on Foxconn's massive factories in Shenzhen, which has a population of workers greater than NYC. That they toil for low pay in exploitative conditions to make our shiny Apple products is an open secret the mainstream media is finally covering. But monologuist Mike Daisey shining on a spotlight on Foxconn factories for years, particularly with his electrifying play The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs. Having read a transcript of the Nightline segment, Daisey says it "does a lot for actually helping to give a human face to people who have been ignored forever." However, "context is everything." On his blog, he writes: more ›

Following the Times' damning investigative series on the human costs of its cheap electronics and Mike Daisey's scathing one-man show, Apple has announced that they have asked the independent group to conduct audits of Apple's assembly suppliers in China. “We believe that workers everywhere have the right to a safe and fair work environment, which is why we’ve asked the FLA to independently assess the performance of our largest suppliers,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement. more ›

In Los Alamos New Mexico, there's a man named Ed Grothus, who for many years worked at the nuclear research laboratory until being dismissed in the '60s after participating in a peace march. But instead of leaving the nuclear company town that is Los Alamos, Grothus stayed put and began amassing all sorts of surplus junk discarded by the labs. His collection, called The Black Hole, is now incalculably vast, and has become a pilgrimage destination for technology geeks, pacifists, and atomic tourists. Mike Daisey, the monologist, went there too, and after seeing his new solo show, If You See Something Say Something, I feel like I was there with him. more ›

In the past several years, writer and performer Mike Daisey has become widely known as one of the most compelling artists working in the solo monologue format first trailblazed by the late, great Spalding Gray. If you're not familiar with Gray's work, you'll be forgiven if the word 'monologist' makes your eyelids droop, but in the right hands the form is as riveting and rewarding as the best ensemble theater. And Daisey's hands are assuredly right; typically seated at a desk with just a microphone, Daisey has a knack for disarming his audience with an approachable persona, incandescent wit and a gift for virtuoso storytelling. more ›

In 2004, Mark Russell resigned from his position as Artistic Director of P.S. 122 after more than two decades spent developing the theater into a mecca for wildly adventurous performance art. And he hasn't looked back; in addition to serving as Artistic Director for Portland's Time Based Art Festival, Russell has remained a major force in New York with his Under the Radar Festival, now in its fourth year and headquartered at the Public Theater. The event draws performers and audiences from around the world for what has arguably become the most exciting theater festival in New York City, a town lousy with them. Russell's impeccable taste is integral to Under the Radar's success; as Eric Bogosian – who got his start at P.S. 122 in the 80s – puts it: "Russell is a genius at finding the awkward new stuff, the gems and diamonds no one's noticed yet. If the 'artist is the antenna of the race,' then Mark is the antenna of the antenna." more ›

MOVIE: The Brooklyn Independent Cinemas series (which takes place the first and third Monday of every month) delivers two shorts tonight. First up is Nevel is the Devil, where "a supervisor at a consumer product testing lab interrogates two suspects of a devilish prank." The second is The Last Romantic, which follows Calvin Wizzig, a poet, around New York in hopes of getting published. Watch the trailer here. 7pm // Barbes [376 9th St, Park... more ›

Happy Father's Day! For those of you who have dads, are dads, or know dads, this one's for you, from all of us at the Gothamist network." more ›

Thursday night, Brooklyn monologist Mike Daisey was performing his "Invincible Summer" show at the American Repertory Theatre when it was disrupted by eighty seven members of a Christian group walking out of the show en masse. Before doing so, however, they walked up to the stage and poured water on his script, destroying the original of the show outline. more ›

I first saw Mike Daisey at The People's Improv Theater at a live recording of The Sound of Young America. I didn't know what he was going to talk about, but, in retrospect, it seems like he could talk about anything and it would still be interesting, funny, intelligent, and insightful. His latest monologue Invincible Summer will run at the The Public Theater January 18th through the 28th. more ›

THEATER: This week marks your last chance to see TRUTH {the heart is a million little pieces above all things}, a one-man show by Mike Daisey that NYMetro declares “a delirious, brainy, hilarious, infuriating experience from which one emerges perversely hopeful.” The play follows the fictional and non-fictional stories of James Frey's self-destruction, the sordid and shocking tale of J.T. LeRoy, and Fernando Pessoa, a Portuguese poet whose great works were written by warring multiple personalities inside his head. These stories are reflected against an autobiographical accounting of Daisey's own history of lying and telling the truth. - John Del Signore more ›

MOVIE ART: Young artists with wtf?-attitudes come together to bring us "Risky Business" - a showcase of mixed media, including video, sculpture, collage, painting, and photography. A parents-out-of-town themed art party will follow the opening. more ›

THEATER: Mike Daisey, the versatile, unpredictable monologuist (and onetime Gothamist interviewee), has revealed a lot about his own past and personality over the course of his years of performing and writing. Now, in the last entry of the season at Galapagos' "Evolve" series, he's going after new material -- a select array of "Great Men of Genius" other than himself. Last week he explored the life more ›

Mike Daisey, Monologuist more ›

The city is no longer awash in saffron, but we promise there is still a lot to do this weekend... more ›