Michael Gubser is a composer, writer, and historian from the Washington, DC area. He wrote the book and co-wrote the music and lyrics for Into the Sun, which debuted at the New York Musical Theatre Festival and has since appeared at the Kennedy Center Page-to-Stage Festival, Montclair State University, James Madison University, and the International College of Musical Theatre. With Paolo Prandoni, he has released five albums -- Game, Hurricane, Ra-Ta-Ta, Transatlantic, and Cheesemaker -- as part of the award-winning rock/pop band Chico Motel. He also wrote the play "Comfort Zone," which was staged at the Firehouse New Works Festival in Newburyport, Massachusetts, and composed a national anthem for a fictitious country in the play "Wormwood" by Michael Signer, produced in California. Mike's modern classical compositions have been performed in California and Washington D.C., and he published a volume of poetry entitled Secret, but Kept it Room. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild and his work can be found on the New Play Exchange. He is currently working on two new musicals: “Dancing Bears,” about the liberation of bears who were captured and taught to dance for tourists; and “Freud’s Family Romance,” about the relation between Sigmund Freud, his wife Martha, and his daughter Anna, also a psychoanalyst.

Mike is a 2021-2022 Guggenheim Fellow and a professor of European history at James Madison University in Virginia. He has published two books on modern European history and an edited book on foreign aid and international development.  His book on the history of international development will soon be published by Yale University Press. When he is not doing all the things mentioned above, he loves to travel.