His two widely-lauded
theatre pieces,
Intimacies and
More Intimacies, in which he portrays a dozen culturally diverse PWAs, have been produced in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Portland, Eugene, Minneapolis, San Antonio, Austin, San Diego, St. Louis, Tucson, Phoenix, Washington D.C., New York City, San Diego, Hartford, New Haven, Northhampton, Sydney (Australia), Liverpool, London, and Manchester (England).
Other writing for the theatre includes his autobiographical The
Truth is Bad Enough and Rock. Myron, Kearns' first multiple-character play, has been produced in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington D.C. He has also written
MIJO, Robert's Memorial and the lyrics for Homeless,
A Street Opera.
Kearns directed and co-produced the Artists Confronting AIDS' landmark productions of AIDS/US in 1986 and AIDS/US II in 1990.
Since 1985, he has been one of the producers of the annual Los Angeles S.T.A.G.E. (Southland Theatre Artists Goodwill Event) benefits. He served as Artistic Director of Celebration Theatre in 1987 and remains Artistic Director of Artists Confronting AIDS.
He also directed the Los Angeles premieres of Robert Chesley's Night
Sweat and Jerker, Rebecca Ranson's WarrenN, and Doug Holsclaw's
Life of the Party: plays depicting AIDS.
As an actor, he appeared in Jerker (Los Angeles, San Diego, Des Moines) and starred, on stage and on video, in James Carroll Pickett's
Dream Man (which has played New York City, San Francisco, Des Moines, L.A., Portland, Washington D.C., Atlanta, Edinburgh, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, and London).
He made television history in 1992, as an openly gay/openly HIV-impacted actor, guesting on a segment of ABC-TV's
Life Goes On in which he played a character who has the virus. He played Cleve Jones in the HBO adaptation of Randy Shilts'
And the Band Played On, and appeared in A Mother's
Prayer and It's My Party.
Other television and film credits include Cheers, Murder
She Wrote, The Waltons, Knots Landing, General
Hospital, Days of Our Lives, Beverly Hills 90210,
The Fall Guy, A River Made to Drown In, Kentucky
Fried Movie and Brian DePalma's Body Double.
In 1993, Kearns fulfilled a dream, playing the title role in Charles Ludlam's
Camille at Highways in Santa Monica, garnering unprecedented rave reviews from the Los Angeles critics. "An actor giving the performance of his life," said the Los Angeles Times. In addition to winning a Drama-Logue Award and a Robby Award, he was nominated by the prestigious Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle for Lead Performance.
The artist has received numerous acting awards, including the 1989 Bay Area Theatre Critics Award, Best Solo Performance, for
Intimacies. As a humanitarian, he has been honored by the L.A. Weekly, PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), the Gay and Lesbian Rights Chapter of the ACLU, and National Coming Out Day. On November 19, 1992, the Mayor of St. Louis, the artist's hometown, proclaimed "Michael Kearns Day." He has received grants from L.A.'s Cultural Affairs Department and the Brody Foundation.
In addition to T-Cells & Sympathy, he has written two other theatre books:
Acting = Life and Getting Your Solo Act Together.
A member of the Dramatists Guild and PEN Center USA West, he lives in Los Angeles where he teaches acting and contributes regularly to Edge Magazine while attending to the duties of being a single parent.