Matthew Warchus - Life

Life

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 Henry V and 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), and 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 directed Yasmina Reza's 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 and in 2008 he directed David Mamet's Speed-the-Plow, starring Kevin Spacey and Jeff Goldblum.

Recent projects included a production of Alan Ayckbourn's trilogy of plays The Norman Conquests at London's Old Vic Theatre, Boeing Boeing at New York's Broadhurst Theatre (Tony nomination for Best Director of a Play), a UK tour of the musical Our House and the stage adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, which played the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane from May 2007 through July 2008. It was the most expensive stage production at the time of its debut.

During the 2008-09 Broadway season, Warchus directed two productions. One was the critically lauded, 2009 Tony Award winner for Best Revival of a Play transfer of his Old Vic production of The Norman Conquests, for which he won the Drama Desk Award for Best Director. The other was the 2009 Tony Award winner for Best Play, Yasmina Reza's smash hit God of Carnage for which Warchus won the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play. In 2010, Warchus directed the acclaimed RSC musical production, Matilda, which transferred to the West End in October 2011.

Warchus's production of Ghost: The Musical, a stage adaptation of the Academy Award winning 1990 film, Ghost premiered at the Manchester Opera House in March 2011, and opened at the West End's Piccadilly Theatre in July 2011 where it is still running. The show transferred to Broadway in spring 2012.

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