Who We Are
OHOH is looking to build a base of participants, volunteers, collaborators, supporters, and donors. We welcome your involvement. Please let us know your feelings, ideas, and suggestions about OHOH—and Waldoboro—at info@ohohwaldoboro.org.
Michael Amico, Director
Michael Amico is a historian, performer, director, curator, and community organizer based in Waldoboro. His work explores how emotions shape our lives and how a shared community spirit can be cultivated and harnessed for collective growth and possibility. His own desire to connect, belong, and find purpose has long been tied to performance. Acting, lecturing, and teaching all center on something not merely performed, but shared—during the event itself and afterward through reflection and conversation. For him, these practices create a space of response, feedback, and exchange: an ongoing conversation with spirits across time that continues to bring pleasure, stimulation, and discovery.
Michael holds a PhD in American Studies from Yale University. His dissertation, The Forgotten Union of the Two Henrys: A History of the “Peculiar and Rarest Intimacy” of the American Civil War, is the first full historical account of a same-sex couple in the war. It marked the beginning of an ongoing exploration of how emotional bonds shape moral and political imagination.
From 2018 to 2023, he was a Research Scientist at the Center for the History of Emotions at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, where he wrote on Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Fireside Chats and on the role of blackface performance in the rise of antislavery sentiment in antebellum America.
Across all his work, Michael treats theater as a model for democratic life—a space where people learn to respond freely to real circumstances without closing off the unknown. He has more than fifteen years of experience in theater and film and performs regularly with Everyman Repertory Theatre.
Michael is an Associate Trustee of the Waldoborough Historical Society, an elected member of the Town of Waldoboro Budget Committee, and chair of the Medomak River Community Park Committee, which is helping create Waldoboro’s new town park.
Board Members
Michael Amico, President
Mia Branco, Vice President
Mia Branco is Education Program Director at The Waldo Theatre, where she runs the theatre arts education program for youth and adults.
Peter Bruun, Treasurer
Peter Bruun is Executive Director of Studio B, using art and the humanities in support of community justice and wellbeing.
Rebecca Cooney, Secretary
Rebecca Cooney is the creator of Waldoboro Voices, an ongoing series of testimonies where people talk about their lives and the things most important to them.