Promotional Boxes
Main Content
Matthew Warchus
Director, Books and Lyrics
Matthew graduated from Bristol University with a First Class honours degree in Music and Drama with Special Distinction - the first ever awarded by this university.
He immediately began a very busy career as a director, which has to date encompassed over fifty major stage productions (thirty five award-winning), including five operas, and one feature film. He has directed acclaimed productions for all the major British companies (including a debut with the RSC as the youngest director ever on the Stratford main stage) as well as three Broadway plays and one Broadway musical.
He was Associate Director at the West Yorkshire Playhouse for the first three years of his career and is currently on the Artistic Board of Shakespeare's Globe and is an Associate Director of the Old Vic Theatre.
Productions include: The Suicide (Time Out Award), Coriolanus, Master Harold and the Boys, Life is a Dream (TMA Award), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Fiddler on the Roof (TMA Award), The Plough and the Stars, Death of a Salesman (TMA Award), Betrayal and two acclaimed productions of Peter Pan (TMA Award)
In the West End: Much Ado About Nothing (Most Promising Newcomer Award), The Unexpected Man (5 Olivier nominations), Life x 3 (2 Olivier nominations), the new musical Our House (Best Musical Olivier Award, also national tour), Andrew Lloyd Webber's Tell Me On A Sunday (Olivier Nomination, also national tour) and Endgame (2 Olivier nominations) with Michael Gambon and Lee Evans. He was the director of the phenomenally successful play Art (Best Comedy Olivier Award, plus 4 other nominations), which played in the West End for seven years and in cloned productions worldwide.
For the Donmar Warehouse: The English premier of The Life of Stuff (Evening Standard and Critics Circle Awards) and True West.
For the National Theatre: Volpone with Michael Gambon (Evening Standard Best Director Award), the English language premier of Life x 3 and Buried Child (5 Olivier nominations) with Lauren Ambrose and M. Emmett Walsh.
For the Royal Shakespeare Company: Henry V (Evening Standard Best Director Award, Olivier nomination), Ben Jonson's The Devil Is An Ass, The Unexpected Man with Eileen Atkins and Michael Gambon, Hamlet with Alex Jennings (Olivier and Evening Standard nominations), which also toured to NY (BAM) and Washington DC (Kennedy Centre) and an American version of The Winter's Tale at the Roundhouse in London and also in Stratford-upon-Avon.
On Broadway: The Tony Award-winning productions of Art (Tony nomination Best Director), True West (Tony nomination Best Director), the Roundabout Theatre production of Steven Sondheim's Follies (5 Tony nominations) and Life x 3 (Tony nomination) with Helen Hunt and John Turturro.
Off-Broadway: The Unexpected Man (Drama Desk Best Director nomination) at the Promenade with Eileen Atkins and Alan Bates.
Opera: For Opera North, English National Opera, Welsh National Opera, Royal Opera House and Tel Aviv Opera include Troilus And Cressida, The Rake's Progress, Falstaff (many revivals) and Cosi Fan Tutte.
He directed, co-wrote and co-produced the feature film adaptation of Sam Shepard's play Simpatico, starring Albert Finney, Catherine Keener, Jeff Bridges, Nick Nolte and Sharon Stone.