Matthew Monaghan

Special Skills

Matthew is highly skilled at working with actors on classical text and new writing. He also enjoys dramaturgical work on classical text and opera, developing revisionist interpretations of canonical work. He is an experienced workshop leader and enjoys working with writers on developing new work.

He is also musical- having achieved a piano diploma (dipABRSM) and violin grade 8. He is especially skilled in opera directing and enjoys working in a dramaturgical capacity with composers and librettists on new compositions and is highly adept at working with musicians.

Previous Experience

Matthew is currently director in residence at Size Zero Opera, for whom he is directing two new commissions in August 2013 - The Viagron by Arne Gieshoff and Kettlehead by Darren Bloom, which have been supported by LSOSoundHub and PRS for Music Foundation. These will be performed at Riverside Studios (for the Tete a Tete opera festival) and the Arcola Theatre. Following this he will be directing international commissions for the company in 2014, including work by Italian composer Lorenzo Troiani and New Zealand composer Chris Gendall.

Whilst at RADA Matthew directed a production of Penetrator by Anthony Nielson, a rehearsed reading of Sarah Kane’s Crave for the RADA Festival and a rehearsed reading of Philip Ridley’s Mercury Fur. He also directed a fringe production of Shakespeare’s The Two Noble Kinsmen. He assisted, amongst others, Sean Holmes at the Lyric Hammersmith (Have I None by Edward Bond) and Rufus Norris at ENO (Don Giovanni). He also assisted on the Jonathan Miller production of The Mikado at ENO. Since leaving RADA he has worked as a staff director on Jonathan Miller’s The Barber of Seville and Jonathan Miller’s La Bohème, both at ENO. Future assisting engagements include work at ENO and The Opera Group in the 2013/2014 season.

Special Interests

Opera, music theatre, tragedy, Shakespeare, English literature, discourse analysis, the history and theory of the English language, identity politics, classical text, new writing, theatrical poetics, Regietheater, and contemporary classical music.