Following his brash creative inklings, he toured Europe with a band of vaudevillian gypsies at the age of twelve, learning the art of comedic timing and writing some inspired pieces, such as “The M-1 Commuter’s Nightmare”, “Two People Sitting at a Desk Talking” and “Croissants at Dawn in a Cosmic Void”, or “Croissants bei Tagesanbruch in einer Kosmischen Lücke” in it’s original incarnation on the outskirts of Garmisch-Partenkirchen.

Those were times of frolicking and laughter, but Michael knew there was more to comedy than simply entertaining the masses throughout the world.  Following a show in Belgrade on a cool early autumn evening, rouge still smeared across his cheek bones, the precocious seventeen-year-old found his true calling.  On this evening he was confronted with the ghost of Jerome Lester Horwitz, known to heathens as Curly Howard of Three Stooges fame. Curly spoke at length in the deep shadows of that chill dusk in Mother Russia, prophesying the future of comedy to the young American expatriate.  He spoke of sketches without boundaries, where the humor would all but consume any hope of form; he spoke of a rough new breed of writer, heady and daft; and, most importantly, he spoke of Edgar Winchester, the brilliant founder of The Winchester Preparatory Sketch Academy. 

Michael spent the next month wandering through the fjords of Scandinavia, mulling over the mind-numbing revelations provided by his spectral visitor.  Soon he found himself returning to the shores of England, and upon hearing their son would attend the elite WPSA per Curly’s strong recommendation, they (his parents) rejoiced.

So it was that Michael returned to his native land of America, eventually graduating from WPSA with top honors, a degree in Office Sketches and a minor in British Humor. 

In the summer of 2002 Michael relocated to Hollywood as part of the Inaugural Touring Company of the Winchester Preparatory Sketch Academy.