Michael "Dola" Amendola
Michael Amendola (he/they) is a Philadelphia-, NYC-, and San Antonio/Austin-based creator-performer, and theatre educator focused on the benefits of embodied play.
As an actor, he has performed in 60+ productions across the United States including 600 shows with the Off-Broadway comedy hit Drunk Shakespeare (New York Times Critics’ Pick, Off-Broadway Alliance nominee Most Unique Theatrical Experience); Baal (Austin Critics’ Table nominee - Best Ensemble; starring Gabriel Luna and Adriene Mishler, directed by Obie and Lucille Lortel award-winning director Dustin Wills); the solo show Every Brilliant Thing at Mill Mountain Theatre; Our Town at ZACH Theater (Austin Critics’ Table winner Best Supporting Actor), and 100 performances as Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream with the American Shakespeare Center.
As a creator of new work, he directed and co-created 5 Stagehands Fall Out of a Closet (the goose crisis) starring and co-created with Grace Lazarz, which had a sold-out run and was a Fringies frontrunner at the 2025 Philadelphia Fringe Festival . In 2024, he produced and co-devised MADCAP & BUSTY (Winner Best Cabaret/Nightlife, Philly Fringe Festival) and co-devised the family-friendly musical, The Bad Pirate Rock Show (Nominee Best Art for Children, Philly Fringe Festival). He collaborated on R + J + Anybodys (Winner Producer's Pick, Cincinnati Fringe Festival) and is currently co-devising Dreaming the Upside-Down Tree with Lyra Butler-Denman and Tyler Catanella.
Michael was also an original ensemble member of NYC's Hedgepig Ensemble Theatre, and co-founded Moonshot Theatre Company and served as Executive Director.
They earned their BFA in Acting from Texas State University His desire to create new work in new ways led him to earn his MFA in Devised Performance from the Pig Iron School at Rowan University, the USA's foremost graduate physical theatre school rooted in Lecoq pedagogy and ensemble theatre practice. He has also studied clown and jeu (play/game) with internationally-renowned teachers including Giovanni Fusetti, Aitor Basauri, Christopher Bayes, Sophie Amieva, Jon Davison, Adam Lazarus, Eric Davis, and Julia Proctor and also studied Shakespeare with The Royal Shakespeare Company.
Michael teaches and facilitates classes in devising, clown, improvisation and characterization and has taught for Duke University, Rowan University, PhysFestNYC, Philly Improv Theater, Circadium School of Contemporary Circus, Austin Shakespeare, Cannonball Festival and the American Shakespeare Center among others.
Inspired by the work of Julia Proctor's Clown Gym in NYC, Michael founded PLAY•JAM in Philadelphia in December 2025. PLAY•JAM offers monthly affordable drop-in workshops that focus on embodied play as a practice for adults. The jams are open to all experience levels and are hosted by a diverse roster of experienced theatre and art professionals.
[How to Fill a Clown Car (Lessons from Julia Proctor's Clown Gym) by Michael Amendola]
They originally hail from San Antonio, Texas and are a die-hard San Antonio Spurs fan. They love playing music, camping (badly), board game nights, potlucks, ducks, traveling, shaking it on the dance floor, and drawing cartoons for his sister's Beginner French Horn book (Erin Amendola xo).
He follows a clown ethos to disorient power and cultivate curiosity. If you keep playing, Death can't win.
With Love & Music -
