Excerpts, talkbacks and Q&A with special guests
providing health and healing education and advocacy.
Wednesday
July 28, 2021 at 7:30pm PT
ANCAN featuring
Michael Bihovsky
Michael Bihovsky will present selections from his award winning film and musical theater works
Watch by clicking box below
The Show
Michael Bihovsky will share selections from his award-winning film and musical theater works, ranging from Les Misparodies to full musicals about neuroplasticity to his brand new music video, Paperweight, which documents the COVID-19 pandemic experience through the lens of disability. Through this wide range of creations, Michael will demonstrate how he has created music and art whose poignancy (and comedy) shines through not merely despite his struggles with the connective tissue disorder Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, but because of those struggles.
ABOUT THE PERFORMER
Michael Bihovsky is a Philadelphia-based musical theater composer, writer, performer, and director. He has written four original musicals, and is best known for the viral Les Mis food allergy parody “One Grain More,” which won the “Best of Faux: Audience Award” and “Best Short” in Portland’s Faux Film Festival, and has been hailed as “The funniest nutrition video ever made!” and “…a must, must, must watch!” Its unofficial sequel, “Trapped Inside the House” (written about the COVID-19 quarantine) also won the award for “Best Musical Film” in The Faux Film Festival (Pandemic Edition), and pioneered innovations in the field of remote directing to comply with social distancing. Michael’s semi-autobiographical musical, Fresh!, was presented off-Broadway as a finalist in the “Scene It: New York” competition, and is currently in preparation for an Actors’ Equity staged reading in New York City. His original play, Without End, attempts to unify science and spirituality through the story of a relationship between a grandson and his grandparents – a fulfillment of Michael’s degree from NYU, where Michael graduated magna cum laude with a combined major in musical theater, astrophysics, and mythology. His newest musical, Senses, is about the phenomenon of neuroplasticity (the brain’s ability to rewire itself under various circumstances), selections from which were recently performed at Philadelphia’s MusiCoLab Salon for New Musicals.
Michael is the composer for “Blogologues,” a New York City comedy show rated by CBS New York as one of “The 5 Best Things To Do In NYC Tonight,” a “Weekend Pick” on NPR, and “The Best Indie Comedy in NYC” in The Village Voice‘s weekly series. Michael also composed the score for the comedy web series “2 Girls 1 Show,” which streams on Elizabeth Banks’ website WhoHaHa.com, and which was nominated as a finalist in 2017’s New York Television Festival and truTV. His original compositions have been commissioned from around the world, including a performance at Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts.
Most of Michael’s writing centers around various themes of medical advocacy, in particular the concept of “invisible illnesses.” Michael has the connective tissue disorder Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS), and he is a prominent health advocate for EDS and for chronic illness in general. These experiences have greatly informed Michael’s work and mission as an artist. He is a recurring contributor to the Stanford Medical Journal’s SCOPE project, and is currently writing a book titled “Live Because: The Philosophy of the Broken, and the Journey Toward Wholeness.” Michael also leads support groups for people facing a variety of chronic health conditions.
For more, visit
www.michaelbihovsky.com
ABOUT SOLO ARTS HEAL
SOLO ARTS HEAL, a weekly MarshStream Public Broadcast Platform program, presents empowering performances about healing and resilience. Through hosted interviews, talkbacks and audience Q&A, the Solo Arts Heal program provides transformative experiences, education, community outreach and advocacy through stories that celebrate the healing power of the arts.
ABOUT ANCAN
AnCan is about people helping people, peer-to-peer ….. we are people living with various conditions and situations who help others faced with similar issues. We do this collectively and individually by providing answers, support and navigation to empower people living with serious and chronic conditions to address their worlds. Our non-profit vision is to provide easily accessible, inclusive virtual peer support for every serious disease and condition allowing widespread participation, especially to those geographically, physically or socially disadvantaged.
AnCan currently hosts around 30 monthly video chat virtual meetings for 11 different conditions. We also produce a dozen or so webinars each year. If you are interested in starting a group for your condition, please reach out to us at info@ancan.org.
If you’d like to sign up for any of our free, drop-in sessions, please visit https://ancan.org
About the Host
Rick Davis is a serial social entrepreneur with a background in finance and real estate. Back in 2010, he had the vision to make peer support virtual and bring it to those who needed it, rather than them having to seek it out. First proving the concept for prostate cancer, AnCan started with telephone conference calls, innovated video chat groups back in 2015, and now hosts almost 30 monthly groups for various cancers, multiple sclerosis and more. Rick met The Marsh’s Founder, Stephanie Weisman through providing support and navigation to a mutual friend. He and AnCan are thrilled and honored to collaborate with The Marsh on Solo Arts Heal.