Nat Cassidy (born September 25, 1981) is an American actor, writer, and musician based out of
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
,
New York, United States. He grew up in
Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix ( ; nv, Hoozdo; es, Fénix or , yuf-x-wal, Banyà :nyuwá) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona, with 1,608,139 residents as of 2020. It is the fifth-most populous city in the United States, and the on ...
and attended
Horizon High School, after which he received his BFA at the
University of Arizona
The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory.
T ...
.
Career
Actor
Cassidy has appeared as an actor in numerous Off- and Off-Off-Broadway productions. He has also appeared in film, television, and web projects, including the acclaimed webseries
High Maintenance
''High Maintenance'' is an American anthology comedy-drama television and web series created by ex-husband and wife team Ben Sinclair and Katja Blichfeld. The show follows The Guy, a cannabis courier (played by Sinclair), as he delivers his pr ...
. In 2013, Cassidy starred in the independent horror-comedy film ''They Will Outlive Us All'', which won numerous awards throughout the festival circuit, including winning Cassidy Best Actor in Chicago's Route 66 International Film Festival.
Ain't It Cool News
Ain't It Cool News (AICN) is an entertainment news website founded by Harry Knowles and run by his sister Dannie Knowles since September 2017, dedicated to news, rumors, and reviews of upcoming and current films, television, and comic book pro ...
said of Cassidy's performance that he is "talented enough to carry this entire film." Also in 2013, he was nominated for a New York Innovative Theatre Award for Outstanding Solo Performance, for the one-man play ''Generic Magic Realism,'' by Edmond Malin.
Cassidy was inducted into the Indie Theater Hall of Fame for his contributions to the NY independent theatre scene, and was described as "an actor, director, and playwright of surprising range and depth."
In 2017, Cassidy joined fellow New York independent theatre artists Mac Rogers, Jordana Williams, and Sean Williams to form Gideon Media, a company dedicated to producing "complex, riveting genre entertainment, centered on pulse-pounding tales of science fiction and horror." Along with the new podcast imprint Tor Labs (an imprint of
Tor Books
Tor Books is the primary imprint of Tor Publishing Group (previously Tom Doherty Associates), a publishing company based in New York City. It primarily publishes science fiction and fantasy titles, and is the largest publisher of Chinese sci ...
), Gideon Media produced their debut podcast, the acclaimed serialized sci-fi noir drama
''Steal the Stars'' (written by Rogers). Nat performed the role of xenobiologist Lloyd, as well as wrote the
novelization of the podcast, which is published by
Tor Books
Tor Books is the primary imprint of Tor Publishing Group (previously Tom Doherty Associates), a publishing company based in New York City. It primarily publishes science fiction and fantasy titles, and is the largest publisher of Chinese sci ...
.
Writer
Cassidy has a reputation for writing "darkly comic plays with one foot in horror and the other in literary allusion," and often feature historical characters. NYTheatre.com called him "a seismic talent" and the theater podcast Maxamoo described him as "one of the hottest young playwrights in" New York City.
His playscripts have been about, among other things,
Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...
,
Charles Lamb
Charles Lamb (10 February 1775 – 27 December 1834) was an English essayist, poet, and antiquarian, best known for his '' Essays of Elia'' and for the children's book '' Tales from Shakespeare'', co-authored with his sister, Mary Lamb (1764†...
and
Mary Lamb
Mary Anne Lamb (3 December 1764 – 20 May 1847) was an English writer. She is best known for the collaboration with her brother Charles on the collection '' Tales from Shakespeare'' (1807). Mary suffered from mental illness, and in 1796, aged ...
,
H.P. Lovecraft, nuclear mutation, President
Franklin Pierce,
zombies
A zombie (Haitian French: , ht, zonbi) is a mythological undead corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of a corpse. Zombies are most commonly found in horror and fantasy genre works. The term comes from Haitian folklore, in wh ...
,
Dostoevsky,
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
, and
genital warts
Genital warts are a sexually transmitted infection caused by certain types of human papillomavirus (HPV). They are generally pink in color and project out from the surface of the skin. Usually they cause few symptoms, but can occasionally be pai ...
.
In 2009, Cassidy's "metaphysical buddy comedy" about an imagined relationship between
Christopher Marlowe and
Caligula, ''The Reckoning of Kit & Little Boots,'' was nominated for three
New York Innovative Theatre Awards
The New York Innovative Theatre Awards (also known as NYIT Awards and IT Awards) are accolades given annually by the New York Innovative Theatre Foundation, a not-for-profit arts organization founded in 2004, to honor individuals and organizat ...
and took home the award for Outstanding Full-Length Script. His play ''Any Day Now'' was also nominated for two NY IT Awards that same year, and took home Outstanding Actress in a Lead Role (Elyse Mirto). In 2011, his
Lovecraft-inspired one-man show, ''I Am Providence or, All I Really Needed to Know about the Stygian Nightmare into Which Mankind Will Inevitably Be Devoured, Its Fruitless Screams of Agony Resounding in the Unending Chasm of Indifferent Space as It Is Digested by Squamous and Eldritch Horrors beyond Comprehension for All of Eternity, I Learned from Howard Phillips Lovecraft,'' won the NY IT Award for Outstanding Solo Performance. In 2014, his play ''Old Familiar Faces'' was nominated for four NYIT Awards, including Outstanding Full-Length Script, Outstanding Ensemble, Outstanding Lead Actor, and Outstanding Lead Actress.
In 2015, his play ''The Temple, or, Lebensraum'', another
Lovecraft-inspired play set during
Black May, was nominated for seven NYIT Awards, including Outstanding Full-Length Script, Outstanding Production, Outstanding Actor in a Lead Role (which Matthew Trumbull, the play's lead, won), Outstanding Sound Design (which its sound designer, Jeanne Travis, won), Outstanding Lighting Design, Outstanding Costume Design, and Outstanding Scenic Design.
In 2012, Cassidy was one of four librettists commissioned by
The Kennedy Center
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (formally known as the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, and commonly referred to as the Kennedy Center) is the United States National Cultural Center, located on the Potom ...
/
Washington National Opera
The Washington National Opera (WNO) is an American opera company in Washington, D.C. Formerly the Opera Society of Washington and the Washington Opera, the company received Congressional designation as the National Opera Company in 2000. Perform ...
in the first-ever American Opera Initiative. With composer
Scott Perkins
Scott Perkins (born June 25, 1980) is an international prize-winning composer, a tenor, an award-winning scholar, and a music educator.
His music includes art songs, musical theatre, solo instrumental works, choral music, electroacoustic insta ...
, he wrote the short opera "Charon," a loose adaptation of a story fragment by
Lord Dunsany, which the Washington Times called "remarkable," "brilliant," and that "Mr. Cassidy’s libretto is what any composer could want."
His work has been produced mainly in New York City, but has also seen productions across the country, including Oklahoma, Wisconsin, and Chicago
His plays have been published by
Samuel French
Samuel French (1821–1898) was an American entrepreneur who, together with British actor, playwright and theatrical manager Thomas Hailes Lacy, pioneered in the field of theatrical publishing and the licensing of plays.
Biography
French foun ...
,
Broadway Play Publishing, New York Theater Experience,
Smith & Kraus,
Applause Books
Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group is an independent publishing house founded in 1949. Under several imprints, the company offers scholarly books for the academic market, as well as trade books. The company also owns the book distributing compa ...
, and
Indie Theater Now.
Nat's debut novel, a novelization of the hit podcast ''Steal the Stars'' was published on November 7, 2017, by Tor Books and named one of the "best new books of November 2017" by the Chicago Review of Books.
Appearances
Television
Film
* ''They Will Outlive Us All''
* ''The Moose Head Over the Mantle''
* ''Android Insurrection''
* ''Total Retribution''
* ''Battle: New York, Day 2''
Off-Broadway and independent theatre
* ''Hamlet'' (Hamlet)
* ''King Kirby'' (as Stan Lee), by
Fred Van Lente
* ''The Runner Stumbles''
* ''Lickspittles, Buttonholers, and Damned Pernicious Go-Betweens''
* ''As You Like It''
* ''Honey Fist''
* ''The Rise and Fall of Miles & Milo''
* ''Good''
Scripts
Full-length
* ''Any Day Now''
* ''The Reckoning of Kit & Little Boots''
* ''The Temple, or, Lebensraum'', loosely inspired by an
H. P. Lovecraft story
* ''Tenants, or, When the Hornet Arrives''
* ''The Eternal Husband''
* ''Old Familiar Faces''
* ''I Am Providence or, All I Really Needed to Know about the Stygian Nightmare into Which Mankind Will Inevitably Be Devoured, Its Fruitless Screams of Agony Resounding in the Unending Chasm of Indifferent Space as It Is Digested by Squamous and Eldritch Horrors beyond Comprehension for All of Eternity, I Learned from Howard Phillips Lovecraft''
* ''Goldsboro''
* ''Pierce''
* ''Songs of Love: A Theatrical Mixtape''
* ''The Blood Brothers Present Bedlam Nightmares''
Short plays
* ''Generation''
* ''Roosterbrood''
* ''Joy Junction''
* ''Sparks Will Fly'' (a song cycle)
* ''All in Good Fun'' (a song cycle)
* ''Into the Life of Things''
* ''Charon'' (libretto)
Novels
* ''Steal the Stars'' (a novelization of the podcast by Mac Rogers), Tor Books,
* ''Mary'', Tor Books, ISBN 9781250265234
References
External links
Personal website*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cassidy, Nat
1981 births
American male film actors
American male stage actors
Living people