Bio

Michael Goldfried is a director and acting coach based in

New York City.

On Broadway he has assisted Jerry Zaks on Losing Louis and Stairway to Paradise. Off-Broadway directing credits include: two seasons with the Summer Play Festival: Novel and Gardening Leave; 365 Plays/365 Days (Joe’s Pub and the Public Theater); Kahn and Kant (45th Street Theater - Drama League Directors Project); "On the Threshold" (co-director of new work by Brown MFA playwrights at the Public Theater). At Ars Nova, he directed two“Wikipedia Plays” and worked with Beau Willimon (Lower Ninth).

Off-Broadway and Regional assistant directing credits include productions with: Oskar Eustis (The Long Christmas Ride Home, Trinity Repertory Company & The Long Wharf Theater); Les Waters (Finn in the Underworld, Berkeley Repertory Company); Peter DuBois (Measure for Pleasure, The Public Theater) and Blanka Zizka (The Other Side, Manhattan Theater Club). He assisted Craig Lucas on the premiere of Singing Forest (directed by Bartlett Sher at the Intiman Theater). He is the recipient of directing fellowships from the Manhattan Theater Club, The Drama League and the Geva Theater Center. He is an alum of the Drama League Director's Project & Lincoln Center Director's Lab.

Michael Goldfried is a member of the first graduating class of the Brown University/Trinity Rep Consortium (MFA '05), and studied directing under Oskar Eustis; Paula Vogel; Kevin Moriarty and Amanda Dehnert. At the Consortium, he directed new plays by Brown University MFA playwrights Jordan Harrison, Deborah Stein and Laura Schellhardt. Additional Consortium directing credits include: Twelfth Night; The Infernal Machine; In the Heart of America and The Imaginary Invalid (adapted by Michael Goldfried with original music by Amanda Dehnert). As a Geva Theater Fellow, Michael Goldfried directed his own adaptation of Tartuffe at Suny Brockport.

Michael Goldfried holds a BA in Drama from Vassar College, and has trained at BADA (British American Drama Academy) in London; The Barrow Group; and with Mike Nichols. As a young native New Yorker, Michael attended drama school at The Neighborhood Playhouse and was a drama major at LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts.

Off-Off Broadway directing premieres include: Rob Urbinati's Shangri La (Queens Theater in the Park); Red, Blue and Purple by Justin Deabler in (Youngblood’s Thicker Than Water” at E.S.T); Something Wonderful Right Away! (American Living Room Festival at HERE); Mike Albo's Sexotheque; and the first New York Revival of Stage Bood by Charles Ludlam.

Before directing, Michael Goldfried acted in numerous plays, and wrote and performed the solo show The Making of Michael Gold (PS 122, HERE, Kraine and PSNBC) as well as Enter, Then Pause in San Francisco and regionally. His extensive background in improvisation includes work with Gotham City Improv; UCB; Holly Mandel/Improvolution; San Francisco Bay Area Theatersports (BATS) and Liquid Soap.

As a University guest teacher and director, Michael Goldfried has worked at NYU, Fordham University, the School of Visual Arts, California College of the Arts and SUNY Brockport - where he was a Geva Theater fellow and directed his own adaptation of Tartuffe. He has worked as a teaching artist in New York City with Camp Broadway and Opening Act, and currently coaches acting in New York City.