Michael Rubinoff - Come From Away
A theatre producer and lawyer, Michael Rubinoff (TW:@mrubinof) IG:@mrubinoff)is most passionate about igniting creation and supporting storytellers. Over the last decade he sparked a renaissance in Canadian musical theatre by developing thirty new musicals through the Canadian Music Theatre Project (the "CMTP"), an internationally recognized incubator of new works that he founded in 2011. Michael conceived the creation of the international hit musical Come From Away, for which he is a Producer and the Creative Consultant on productions worldwide, and has received the Olivier Award for Best Musical, a Tony Award Nomination for Best New Musical and the Meritorious Service Cross awarded by the Governor General of Canada on behalf of Her Majesty the Queen and all Canadians. During a decade of service in post-secondary education, Michael has served as academic leader, director of a research centre and elected member of a Board of Governors. He has collaborated with producers, creators and educators around the world to support innovation and creativity in theatre and arts education. As a leading expert and thought leader in the development of new musicals, he has been called upon to provide guidance and leadership to not for profit organizations, colleges and universities, commercial producers, emerging arts practitioners and government agencies.
Education:
Michael completed his B.A. (Political Science) and LL.B. at Western University. He was the recipient of the Dean Ivan C. Rand Award in recognition of meritorious academic standing throughout his years in law, and outstanding contributions in the service of the undergraduate students of the Faculty of Law. He remains the only student to have been elected twice as president of Western Law’s Student Legal Society. He also served as the elected student representative to Western’s Board of Governors. He was a member of the 2000 winning team of the Niagara International Law Moot Court Competition and the valedictorian of his graduating law class. He was called to the Ontario Bar in 2002 and is a member of the Law Society of Ontario. Michael is a graduate of the Commercial Theatre Institute's intensive producing program in New York and is a 2015 member of the Governor General’s Canadian Leadership Conference.
“I think only people in the theater know what a producer is. The public does not know. It knows a writer writes, and an actor acts, and a director tells them what to do. A producer raises money. Well, he does, and in some cases that's all he does. But the workers in the theater know that this is not the real thing. A producer is a rare, paradoxical genius -hard-headed, soft-hearted, cautious, reckless, a hopeful innocent in fair weather, a stern pilot in stormy weather, a mathematician who prefers to ignore the laws of mathematics and trust intuition, an idealist, a realist, a practical dreamer, a sophisticated gambler, a stage-struck child. That's a producer.”— Oscar Hammerstein II
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