Nick Gabriel

“[Gabriel delivers] one of the finest interpretations of a Beckett role that I've had the privilege to see."  -  The Wall Street Journal

Nick Gabriel is an award-winning theater artist, educator and administrator. He is the former director of Studio A.C.T. at the American Conservatory Theater, where he conceived and implemented Studio A.C.T.’s curricular and operational revitalization while serving on the associate faculty of A.C.T.’s Master of Fine Arts program. He was instrumental in developing and deploying A.C.T.’s world-class outreach program and the San Francisco Semester, an intensive, collegiate study-away program. He is a former theater arts curriculum assessor for the New York State Education Department and a recipient of the Teachers 4 Social Justice Award.

As an A.C.T. Resident Artist, Gabriel played many principal roles in mainstage productions, including Clov in ENDGAME opposite Tony Award-winner Bill Irwin, and Nihad in SCORCHED starring Emmy Award-winner David Strathairn. At La Jolla Playhouse he played Zhao Dun in THE ORPHAN OF ZHAO starring Tony Award-winner B.D. Wong, and at Laguna Playhouse he played Dr. Lyman Sanderson in HARVEY starring Emmy Award-nominee French Stewart. He has also played principal roles in mainstage productions at some of the country’s other major venues such as Milwaukee Rep, New York’s Town Hall, South Coast Rep, the Guthrie, and, as an Associate Artist, the California Shakespeare Theater. In addition to extensively performing the classics, Gabriel has developed hundreds of new works as both an actor and director, and has originated roles in multiple world and regional premieres. He has danced numerous character roles with the Berkshire Ballet and performed principal singing and speaking roles with the San Francisco Symphony, where he played the Soldier in A SOLDIER'S TALE alongside Grammy Award-winner Elvis Costello and Academy Award-winner Malcolm McDowell.

At Chapman University, Gabriel has directed SHE KILLS MONSTERS, ZANNA, DON'T!, RIDE THE CYCLONE, THE LITTLE PRINCE, and AMERICAN IDIOT, as well as four cycles of the fourth-year Industry Showcase. He has directed extensively in higher education elsewhere. Professionally, Gabriel has produced, developed, and directed productions on the many stages of A.C.T., The Knitting Factory, Don't Tell Mama, The Regency Ballroom, the GLBT Historical Society, and Laguna Playhouse, to name a few. In partnership with the Goethe-Institut, he directed the world premiere of Philip Kan Gotanda's play, #CAMPTULELAKE for the Plurality of Privacy project, a production that was broadcast internationally and that brought him to the Graz National Theatre in Austria. In recognition of this achievement, he was invited to present on a panel that explored the relationship between privacy and performance at the European Theatre Convention in Sarajevo. His ethno-docudrama exploring Italian American identity was initially screened at the California Interdisciplinary Consortium of Italian Studies, and a revised iteration is currently in development. In 2018, Gabriel facilitated a partnership with Laguna Playhouse that enabled six Chapman University students to perform in the ensemble of THE GRADUATE, starring Golden Globe-winner Melanie Griffith.

His contemporized adaptation of SIX CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR by Luigi Pirandello was initially drafted in response to the #MeToo movement and further developed at the Civica Scuola di Teatro Paolo Grassi in Milan, where it also received its world premiere, and where Gabriel is a member of the Associate Faculty. The script was then published by the Pirandello Society of America just before Gabriel directed the North American premiere at Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Los Angeles featuring a cast comprised entirely of Chapman University graduates. He then brought his production of SIX CHARACTERS... to the Italian Cultural Center of San Diego, before transferring it to Casa Italiana in New York. Fame Magazine described it as “the kind of production that makes you feel lucky to be in the room. It was human. It was honest. And it wasn’t afraid to ask the hard questions about who gets to tell a story and why it matters.” Gabriel’s dramatic adaptation of Luigi Pirandello’s short story, The Choice, and his contemporized "inspired-by" adaptation of TONIGHT WE IMPROVISE were also published by PSA. For his ongoing work adapting Pirandello’s writing, he has been an invited panelist at two Modern Language Association conferences and at the American Association of Teachers of Italian conference in Catania, Sicily.

He is an inaugural Fellow of the Ferrucci Institute for Italian Experience and Research and a recipient of the Ferrucci Institute's Community Service Award. He is also a Ten Chimneys Foundation Lunt-Fontanne Fellow and has received numerous San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award nominations and wins. In 2011, The Huffington Post named him the second most-valuable contributor to the Cultural Landscape of the San Francisco Bay Area. He is a Patsy Rodenburg Associate, a Certified Practitioner of the Michael Chekhov Technique, a Designated Meisner Teacher, a Dueling Arts International Certified Theatrical Combatant, and was selected to be among the inaugural participants in Theatrical Intimacy Education’s Educator Advocate Program. He received a BFA in musical theatre from the University of Michigan and an MFA in acting from A.C.T. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Expand the Canon, an advocacy and education organization committed to the ongoing production and promotion of classic plays by women and people of all underrepresented genders.