Mayer was born in Bethesda, Maryland, to Jewish parents Jerry and Louise Mayer (born 1936).[2][3] For his bar mitzvah, he asked his parents for a movie camera and received a Super 8 single lens with a zoom.[4] His first film was a dramatization of "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia".[5]
Mayer began performing onstage in New York City, performing in plays such as Tony Kushner's A Bright Room Called Day, but by 1990 had turned his efforts to directing, working as a freelancer while also teaching at NYU, the Lincoln Center Theater Institute, and the Juilliard School. He also served as an assistant director for Kushner's Hydriotaphia.[8]
Theatre
In 2007, Mayer won his first Tony Award for his direction of the musical adaptation of Spring Awakening (2006), which also won the award for Best Musical. He was nominated for the 2002 Tony for his direction of Thoroughly Modern Millie, which he then directed on London's West End. Mayer also won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director of a Musical for both Spring Awakening and Thoroughly Modern Millie.
He directed the pilot and three subsequent episodes of NBC's TV series Smash, which were broadcast starting in February 2012.[9]
He should not be confused with the identically spelled Michael Mayer, who directed a film titled Graduation (2007).[10]
Opera
Mayer made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 2012 with Rigoletto; he reset the scene from 16th-century Mantua to 1960s Las Vegas. He was the director of the premiere of Nico Muhly's Marnie for the English National Opera in 2017, which was later performed at the Metropolitan Opera in 2018. He also directed a new production of Verdi's La traviata for the Metropolitan Opera in December 2018.
Personal life
Mayer is openly gay. He lives with his partner, oncologist Roger Waltzmann, in Chelsea, Manhattan.[11] He is close friends with playwright Tony Kushner, whom he met while studying at NYU.[12]
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