James Nelson is a third-year M.F.A. candidate in directing, and Titus Andronicus is his M.F.A. Thesis production. Last season for IU, James directed Machinal. He previously directed the IU Studio productions of Annie Baker’s Circle Mirror Transformation and Aaron Ricciardi’s Resting Bitch Face.
James worked for several years as a freelance director in the San Francisco Bay Area, directing productions for Custom Made Theatre Company (The Book of Liz and In Love and Warcraft, which received the 2015 Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle award for overall production, direction, and ensemble), Ross Valley Players (A Month in the Country and Chapter Two), Masquers Playhouse (Farragut North and Dead Man's Cell Phone), FaultLine Theater (The Ice Cream Sandwich Incident), Dragon Productions (Becky's New Car), Novato Theater Company (Inspecting Carol), as well as shorter pieces for the San Francisco Olympians Festival, the One-Minute-Play Festival, and others.
He spent several years acting and directing in Germany, and was previously the artistic director of the Anglo-Irish Theatre Group in Tübingen, where he directed productions of Equus, Translations, The Pillowman, And Then There Were None, Black Comedy, and Romeo and Juliet. Originally from Kansas City, James has a B.A. in Theatre from UMKC.
The College of Arts