Nat Cassidy


Nat Cassidy is an American novelist, actor, playwright, and musician based out of New York City, New York, United States. He grew up in Phoenix, Arizona and attended Horizon High School, after which he received his BFA at the University of Arizona.

Career

Actor

Cassidy has appeared as an actor in numerous Off- and Off-Off-Broadway productions. He has also appeared in film, television, and web projects, including the acclaimed webseries High Maintenance. In 2013, Cassidy starred in the independent horror-comedy film They Will Outlive Us All, which won numerous awards throughout the festival circuit, including winning Cassidy Best Actor in Chicago's Route 66 International Film Festival. Ain't It Cool News said of Cassidy's performance that he is "talented enough to carry this entire film." Also in 2013, he was nominated for a New York Innovative Theatre Award for Outstanding Solo Performance, for the one-man play Generic Magic Realism, by Edmond Malin.
Cassidy was inducted into the Indie Theater Hall of Fame for his contributions to the NY independent theatre scene, and was described as "an actor, director, and playwright of surprising range and depth."
In 2017, Cassidy joined fellow New York independent theatre artists Mac Rogers, Jordana Williams, and Sean Williams to form Gideon Media, a company dedicated to producing "complex, riveting genre entertainment, centered on pulse-pounding tales of science fiction and horror." Along with the new podcast imprint Tor Labs, Gideon Media produced their debut podcast, the acclaimed serialized sci-fi noir drama Steal the Stars. Nat performed the role of xenobiologist Lloyd, as well as wrote the novelization of the podcast, which is published by Tor Books.
Nat frequently continues his work with Gideon Media, also appearing in their audio adaptations of the movie Witness, the play Almalem, and the original, multi-season production Give Me Away.

Playwright

Cassidy has a reputation for writing "darkly comic plays with one foot in horror and the other in literary allusion," and often feature historical characters. NYTheatre.com called him "a seismic talent" and the theater podcast Maxamoo described him as "one of the hottest young playwrights in" New York City.
His playscripts have been about, among other things, Shakespeare, Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb, H.P. Lovecraft, nuclear mutation, President Franklin Pierce, zombies, Dostoevsky, Nazi Germany, and genital warts.
In 2009, Cassidy's "metaphysical buddy comedy" about an imagined relationship between Christopher Marlowe and Caligula, The Reckoning of Kit & Little Boots, was nominated for three New York Innovative Theatre Awards and took home the award for Outstanding Full-Length Script. His play Any Day Now was also nominated for two NY IT Awards that same year, and took home Outstanding Actress in a Lead Role. In 2011, his Lovecraft-inspired one-man show, I Am Providence or, All I Really Needed to Know about the Stygian Nightmare into Which Mankind Will Inevitably Be Devoured, Its Fruitless Screams of Agony Resounding in the Unending Chasm of Indifferent Space as It Is Digested by Squamous and Eldritch Horrors beyond Comprehension for All of Eternity, I Learned from Howard Phillips Lovecraft, won the NY IT Award for Outstanding Solo Performance. In 2014, his play Old Familiar Faces was nominated for four NYIT Awards, including Outstanding Full-Length Script, Outstanding Ensemble, Outstanding Lead Actor, and Outstanding Lead Actress. In 2015, his play The Temple, or, Lebensraum, another Lovecraft-inspired play set during Black May, was nominated for seven NYIT Awards, including Outstanding Full-Length Script, Outstanding Production, Outstanding Actor in a Lead Role, Outstanding Sound Design, Outstanding Lighting Design, Outstanding Costume Design, and Outstanding Scenic Design.
In 2012, Cassidy was one of four librettists commissioned by The Kennedy Center/Washington National Opera in the first-ever American Opera Initiative. With composer Scott Perkins, he wrote the short opera "Charon," a loose adaptation of a story fragment by Lord Dunsany, which the Washington Times called "remarkable," "brilliant," and that "Mr. Cassidy’s libretto is what any composer could want."
His work has been produced mainly in New York City, but has also seen productions across the country, including Oklahoma, Wisconsin, and Chicago
His plays have been published by Samuel French, Broadway Play Publishing, New York Theater Experience, Smith & Kraus, Applause Books, and Indie Theater Now.

Novelist

Nat has been named one "of the best horror writers of this generation" and one of "the writers shaping horror's next golden age" by Esquire.
His first published book, a novelization of the podcast Steal the Stars, was published on November 7, 2017, by Tor Books and named one of the "best new books of November 2017" by the Chicago Review of Books and one of the best books of 2017 by NPR.
Nat's original debut novel, Mary: An Awakening of Terror, was published on July 19, 2022, by Tor Nightfire. It was named one of the best books of that year by Esquire, Paste Magazine, CrimeReads, and The Lineup, and one of "the best books for spooky season" by Harper's Bazaar. In 2024, Goodreads included it as one of "the most popular horror novels of the past five years" and its audiobook, narrated by Susan Bennett, was named one of the "Top 100 Horror Books of All Time" by Audible.
Nat's follow up novel, Nestlings, was published on October 31, 2023, by Tor Nightfire. It was named one of the best books of that year by NPR, the New York Public Library, Esquire, and others.
In 2024, he published a novella and two chapbooks with the independent publishers, Shortwave. Rest Stop was named one of the best horror books of that year by Den of Geek and Esquire.
In 2024, the Line-Up described Nat as the "Stephen King of TikTok," due to the "many readers including on their top reading lists."
His novel, When the Wolf Comes Home, was published by Tor Nightfire in April 2025.

Appearances

Film

  • They Will Outlive Us All
  • The Moose Head Over the Mantle
  • Android Insurrection
  • Total Retribution
  • ''Battle: New York, Day 2''

Off-Broadway and independent theatre

  • Hamlet
  • King Kirby, by Fred Van Lente and Crystal Skillman
  • The Runner Stumbles
  • Lickspittles, Buttonholers, and Damned Pernicious Go-Betweens
  • As You Like It
  • Honey Fist
  • The Rise and Fall of Miles & Milo
  • ''Good''

Scripts

Full-length

  • Any Day Now
  • The Reckoning of Kit & Little Boots
  • The Temple, or, Lebensraum, loosely inspired by an H. P. Lovecraft story
  • Tenants, or, When the Hornet Arrives
  • The Eternal Husband
  • Old Familiar Faces
  • I Am Providence or, All I Really Needed to Know about the Stygian Nightmare into Which Mankind Will Inevitably Be Devoured, Its Fruitless Screams of Agony Resounding in the Unending Chasm of Indifferent Space as It Is Digested by Squamous and Eldritch Horrors beyond Comprehension for All of Eternity, I Learned from Howard Phillips Lovecraft
  • Goldsboro
  • Pierce
  • Songs of Love: A Theatrical Mixtape
  • ''The Blood Brothers Present Bedlam Nightmares''

Short plays

  • Generation
  • Roosterbrood
  • Joy Junction
  • Sparks Will Fly
  • All in Good Fun
  • Into the Life of Things
  • ''Charon''

Novels

  • Steal the Stars, 2017, Tor Books,
  • Mary: An Awakening of Terror, 2022, Tor Books, ISBN 9781250265234
  • Nestlings, 2023, Tor Books,
  • Rest Stop, 2024, Shortwave Publication, ISBN 9781959565369
  • When the Wolf Comes Home, 2025, Tor Books, ISBN 9781250354341