Matthew Warchus
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Matthew Warchus (born October 24th 1966) is an award-winning English director and dramatist.
Warchus studied music and drama at Bristol University. He has directed for the National Youth Theatre, Bristol Old Vic, Donmar Warehouse, Royal Shakespeare Company, Royal National Theatre, Opera North, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Welsh National Opera, English National Opera and in the West End.
He won the Globe's Most Promising Newcomer Award for Much Ado About Nothing in the West End, the Evening Standard Best Director award, and Olivier award nominations for Shakespeare's Henry V and Ben Jonson's Volpone.
Productions include: Sejanus his Fall (Edinburgh), Master Harold and the Boys (Bristol Old Vic), The Suicide, Coriolanus (National Youth Theatre), Life is a Dream, Plough and the Stars, True West (Donmar Warehouse), Henry V, The Devil is an Ass, Hamlet (RSC), Volpone (RNT), Troilus and Cressida (Opera North), Rake's Progress (Welsh National Opera), Falstaff (Opera North & ENO), Art (West End & Broadway).
His recent productions of Hamlet at the Barbican Theatre and Falstaff at the English National Opera have been nominated for several Olivier awards including "Best Director". Hamlet has also been seen at the Brooklyn Academy in New York and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.
Warchus was nominated for a Tony Award for his direction of the Broadway hit Art written by Yasmina Reza, starring Alan Alda, Victor Garber and Alfred Molina. Since then he also directed Reza's next two plays The Unexpected Man (RSC) and Life x 3 (National Theatre) in London and New York (at, respectively, the Promenade Theatre and The Circle in the Square).
In 1999 he completed his debut feature film - an adaptation of Sam Shepard's play Simpatico - which he co-wrote and directed, starring Nick Nolte, Jeff Bridges, Albert Finney and Sharon Stone.
In 2000 he directed Sam Shepard's True West starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and John C. Reilly.
Current projects (as of February 2007) include a production of Boeing Boeing at London's Comedy Theatre and the stage adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, which began playing in May 2007 at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.
