John Haag plays Michael from Robert Schenkkan’s epic The Kentucky Cycle.
John Haag started acting in New York in off-off Broadway and regional theaters. Since moving to Massachusetts, John has done theater, industrial films, and voice overs, and has recorded 15 audio-books for commercial production and over 200 titles for the Library of Congress. He started studying with Wren two years ago. You can find samples of his work on Audible.com, Audiofile Magazine, and on his website, http://johnhaag.biz/.
From John: “A brutish, violent man, hardened by the oppression he suffered as a boy in his native Ireland, Michael Rowen comes to this country as an indentured servant, penniless and landless, and proceeds to murder his way into ownership of his own land, then kidnaps and rapes a native woman to give him sons who, he hopes, will give him what he’s never had before – security and prosperity on his own land – and to whom he hopes to bequeath the land to establish the Rowens as landed gentry in the new country. It would have been easy to play the brute with this character, but my work with Wren went deeper, to that vulnerable, wounded child in Michael, who in spite of his cruelty, tries to find in Morning Star some small measure of understanding, empathy, and even love. The Kentucky Cycle traces our violent, myth-ridden history in this country from one generation to the next, and no character in the play embodies that history more then Michael Rowen. I loved embodying this character.”