Nathan James

Nathan James will be appearing as Xavier in the upcoming feature film, We Are Unsatisfied, starring Billy Crystal, and Ben Schwartz late 2018.  He is a proud native of Pittsburgh, and began his career with Kuntu Repertory Theater.  The New York Times considered him a standout actor for his performance in August Strindberg’s Easter, at the Gene Frankel Theater.  He received a bachelor’s degree in Africana Studies from the University of Pittsburgh, and his MFA in acting from Penn State University.  Nathan’s one man play, Growing Pains, has been produced at The August Wilson Center for African American Culture, The Billie Holiday Theater, and has appeared in play festivals such as The Cultural Conversations Festival at Penn State, and The United Solo Theater Festival on Theatre Row, NYC.  He won 1st place at Amateur Night at the Apollo with an original poem, Death of Swag.  Nathan is one of seven playwrights of The New Black Fest’s HANDS UP: 7 Playwrights, 7 Testaments (Seven ten minute plays following the shooting of Mike Brown).  Hands Up appeared in American Theater Magazine, and most recently has been published with Samuel French, Inc.  It was performed on BBC Radio, in which Nathan’s play, Superiority Fantasy, was chosen as BBC Radio’s Play of the Week.  Nathan received an A.U.D.E.L.C.O Award for Best Supporting Actor 2014, and he is the recipient of the August Wilson Center Playwriting Fellowship 2013.

 

Some of Nathan’s theater credits include: Playing with Fire (Off-Broadway, The Gene Frankel Theater), Black Angels over Tuskegee (Off-Broadway, St. Luke's Theater), Wait until Dark (Pennsylvania Centre Stage), Work Song (Pittsburgh City Theater), Singing on Holy Ground (South Africa International Theater Festival), Maid’s Door (The National Black Theater Festival). 

 

His Film/TV credits include: Shades of Blue [recurring] (NBC), Quantico (ABC), The Wire (HBO), Blindspot (HBO), VINYL (HBO), Person of Interest (CBS), The Interestings (Amazon), Blue Bloods (CBS), The Path (Hulu), Pain Within (Sundance Film Festival), and the feature film, Service to Man (soon to be widely distributed over Netflix and HULU in 2018). 

 

As a spoken word poet, Nathan has performed on various stages internationally, and won several slams around the United States, including ranking in the top 15 poets in the nation at the National Poetry Slam (PSI) in 2005.  He has been commissioned to write poems for some of America’s most notable black pioneers such as Mae Jemison, Diddy (Vote or Die campaign), Roy Ayers, and Angela Davis.  He is currently living in Brooklyn and teaching acting and screenwriting for HBO and The McCarter Theater at Princeton University.