Michael Barra has spent his career at the nexus of Hollywood and Broadway and currently serves as the President of Araca Media and Entertainment, the content studio division of The Araca Group, the global live stage and brand management company (Urinetown, Wicked) with offices in NYC, LA, London, Sydney and Las Vegas. For Araca Michael is responsible for overseeing a slate of adaptations of Hollywood Media properties for the stage as well as the company's television and film development activities.

Prior to Araca, Michael was an executive at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank as well as with the Disney Theatrical Group in NYC. Post-Disney, Michael founded Stageworks Media, which partners with branded media companies to adapt their intellectual property for the stage, which he sold to private equity firm Rebel Rebel Capital in 2014.

Michael is an MBA who spent the first seven years of his career as a consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Boston and NY, before co-founding and serving as the Producing Artistic Director for Off-Broadway’s Gotham Stage Company. Michael is a contributor to The Clyde Fitch Report and is the current President of The Players, the Gramercy Park social club for the entertainment industry founded by Edwin Booth in 1888. He is also an adjunct professor of Theater Producing at the Baruch College Graduate Arts Management Program and has lectured on the subject of adapting for the stage at Suffolk University, the Commercial Theatre Institute, and Theater Resources Unlimited.