After graduating with honors from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, Nathaniel founded the theater company Prophecy Productions and held the position of Artistic Director for three years, overseeing developmental writing labs that introduced emerging writers’ work to the stage and fostered community among the ‘aughts downtown theater crowd. An equal fan of the Bard as new work, he performed off-off-Broadway as Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew and routinely performs monologues belonging to Benedict, Hotspur, and Hamlet while walking his cocker spaniel.
 
One of his favorite roles as an actor was the “good” brother Austin in Sam Shepard’s True West, which lit a fire under his lifelong passion for writing and spurred him to author his first novel Concrete Fever, which went on to become a Bestseller at NYC’s landmark Strand Bookstore. His second novel Dahlia Cassandra was launched from the Strand’s Rare Book Room and went on to grace some Best of the Year lists. His third novel My Life on Rye was published by At Large Magazine in chapter-by-chapter serialization, and his story collection Listen Hard There May Be Trumpets was published in a small batch pocket-sized edition of 100 copies only. He’s also co-authored gift books for publishers such as HarperCollins and Penguin-Random House. 
 
Whilst scribbling, Nathaniel took over leadership for the Greenpoint Writers Group, a position that he held for just shy of a decade. With more than a little help from his friends, Nathaniel instituted a multi-tiered structure for the collective that addressed the needs of both hobbyists and careerists of the written word, from novelists to essayists to playwrights, leading Barnes & Noble’s Nook Press to feature the group as a model for how writers can build their own communities.
 
During pandemic, Nathaniel focused his energies on music, teaching himself to play a variety of instruments and releasing albums under the name Growl Honey. His most recent album, titled Yonder Lies, featured rising talents from the Bushwick, Ridgewood, and Detroit music scenes and was timed out to align with one of his earliest favorite movies, Empire Records. The visuals for this “Dark Side of the Rainbow”-kinda mashup will be released on Rex Manning Day in some future year, perhaps this one. His current obsessions include blues, roots, soul, and drone music, which is coalescing into his next album that will be recorded in a lofted circle barn surrounded by cows.
 
For upwards of a decade he has worked as an “embedded artist” at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (not his real title), acting as lead producer, writer, director, and voiceover talent for explainer videos on cornerstone efforts that the institution has taken to address the needs of underserved communities and help build a better economy for all. He currently produces their public-facing podcast Bank Notes, acting as host and narrator for the 2024 episode “Veterans in the Labor Force” as well as a forthcoming season focused on community-led efforts to create greater economic opportunity within traditionally disinvested areas.
 
This year, he is helping stand up a multidisciplinary arts incubator called Auntie Gertrude's Art Salon that seeks to foster community and opportunities for creatives and the creative-adjacent who love them.

He's taking road trips through red states and blue states chatting with anybody and everybody to find common ground. 

And, he is developing an app that seeks to combat social isolation and improve community health through interactive engagement with fine art, reaffirm commonalities across the ideological spectrum, and build a new employment benefits framework that offers greater stability for the creative workforce.

He welcomes the opportunity for new conversations and potential partnerships.
 
Nathaniel can be reached at nkressen@gmail.com.