biography NATHANIEL MERCHANT received a B.A. from The Catholic University of America in 1991 in acting and directing, and since that time has been directing theater and opera. From 1998-2002 he was both Producing and Casting Director for the American Globe Theatre in New York. There, he directed Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Edmund Ironside, The Importance of Being Earnest, and The Actor's Nightmare, as well as working with their Shakespeare For Schools initiative. As a director of opera,he will direct Verdi's Rigoletto and has recently staged Terrence McNally's Master Class for Harrisburg Opera and Verdi's rare Byron opera Il corsaro for Sarasota Opera. He has worked with the Bronx Opera Company and the CoOPERAtive Opera Company in New York, staging La traviata, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Don Pasquale, Il segreto di Susanna, Beauty and the Beast, The Face on the Barroom Floor, and the New York premiere of the zarzuela Molinos de Viento. He has also directed Trial By Jury and H.M.S. Pinafore for the Troupers Light Opera Company in Connecticut is eagerly anticipating directing the entire G&S repertoire, including Utopia, Ltd. and The Grand Duke. Mr. Merchant has also been active in adapting rare works for the stage, as in the case with Shakespeare's "lost" play Edmund Ironside, the Plautus comedies The Merchant/Pseudolus, and the Moliere comedies Love's the Best Doctor/The Flying Doctor, all of which he directed as well. He has also made revisions to the already translated libretti of the Italian operas he has directed, seeking to refine rhyme schemes and have them adhere to the original text. Currently, Mr. Merchant is completing his original musical based on Henry Tudor of England, with music by Joseph E. Fields of the Dance Theatre of Harlem and adapting the French playwright Jean Giraudoux's Tiger at the Gates for the New York stage. Other original projects include a libretto based on Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables and a play, The Exile.