D I R E C T O R
B I O G R A P H Y
Nathaniel Merchant (Stage Director) is a director of opera and theater based in New York City. His directing credits include Rossini's Guillaume Tell and Bizet's Les Pêcheurs de Perles with Opera Southwest in New Mexico, as well as Verdi's La Traviata and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance with Opera Providence. For Salt Marsh Opera in Connecticut, he has staged Donizetti's L'Elisir d'amore and Don Pasquale, Bellini's La Sonnambula, Rossini's La Cenerentola, Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro and The Magic Flute, Verdi's Rigoletto, and Puccini's Gianni Schicchi.
For Bronx Opera, he has staged Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia, and Verdi’s La traviata. Other productions include Puccini’s Tosca for Myriad Opera Company, Donizetti’s Anna Bolena for dell’Arte Opera, Rigoletto for Harrisburg Opera, and Verdi’s Il Corsaro for Sarasota Opera. As Producing Director for American Globe Theatre, he directed Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, Shakespeare’s Edmund Ironside, Hamlet, and Julius Caesar.
Mr. Merchant is also actively involved in adapting works for the theater and musical stage. Some notable projects include Ben Jonson's Sejanus: His Fall, in collaboration with Elizabethan drama scholar, Julian Koslow, and his work with playwright and author, Robert Fripp, on Mr. Fripp's dramatic response to Shakespeare's Richard III, titled Dark Sovereign, which was published in 2011. And, in line with his disturbing Ricardian obsession, Mr. Merchant is writing a musical play based on the reign of the overlooked Tudor King, Henry VII.