Matthew Antoci is a generative director & performer, producer, and curator of live performance going "full diva mode" in New York City. They're currently the Head of Programming at Ars Nova, where they champion genre-defying artists and bold new work.

 

As a director and creator, Matthew's practice blends pop spectacle with theatrical chaos, and exists in various mediums, including multi-media performance, theatre, and drag. Matthew's projects have been called "supremely confident" and "a delicious hot mess" by critics, and have been featured in The New York Times and The New Yorker. They've produced and shown work onstage at La MaMa, MITU 580, CATCH, The Invisible Dog, PS21 Chatham, The Chocolate Factory Theater, The Exponential Festival, Mercury Store, The Brick, Loading Dock, Baryshnikov Arts Center, IRT Theater, Dixon Place, Purgatory, Life World, The Kraine, and Celebration Barn. As a curator, they have a passion for DIY performance, and have curated for the weekly performance guide Staff Picks, quarterly SalOn! Performance Series, and the Obie-winning Brick Theater.

​

Their duo-ish performance with Meaghan Robichaud, a noir riff on the 1975 documentary Grey Gardens told from the perspective of raccoons, MEOW!, played a sold-out run at The Loading Dock as part of the 10th Exponential Festival in January 2025. Other original works include an English-Romanian dance-theater piece about alien monarchy Vivian Oblivion; two chamber pieces about bad girls, Rotten C*nt Girl & Crimes of Glamour (with Gabriella Gonzalez); a visual internet opera for an ensemble & live feed camera, Babies on the Street (with Hillary Gao), and an Upper East Side adaptation of Timon of Athens, I AM MY OWN MILF (Winner: Outstanding Devising, Young-Howze Theatre Journal). They’re a member of the experimental performance collective CHILD (led by Lisa Fagan), whose show 1-800-3592-113592, was named one of the Best Theatre of 2024 in The New Yorker by Helen Shaw. Other companies they’ve worked with include theater and media company Fake Friends at CultureHub, Jerry Lieblich's Third Ear at La MaMa, and Rude Grooms at CultureLab LIC. In addition to their work in live performance, Matthew collaborates with many artists at different stages of development, wearing the hats of devising facilitator and show doula.

 

Matthew is sometimes a freelance dialect coach and astrologer. Their current artistic interests include Italian Americans, daytime television, and the work of Stephen Varble. They are an unapologetic Chekhov stan, and (for similar reasons) are obsessed with The Real Housewives. Matthew is non-binary and uses they/them pronouns.