Based in Boston, Nathaniel is a chubby, gay, Puerto Rican born and raised in the barrios and working-class suburbs of Southern California.

Nathaniel uses performance to subvert apathy. He is the founding Artistic Director of Naked Empire Bouffon Company (www.nakedempirebouffon.org), through which he devises and tours across North America with outrageous physical comedies that satirize society’s worst dysfunctions.

As a community advocate, he cut his teeth as a manager for programs out of the LA Gay & Lesbian Center, the National Conference for Community & Justice, and Cornerstone Theater Company. His recent advocacy work focuses on social justice in the workplace and in performance pedagogy and is highly influenced by the teachings of ArtEquity’s national facilitator training, Nicole Brewer’s foundational anti-racist theatre training, adrienne maree brown’s Emergent Strategy work, and Claire Warden’s intimacy direction training, among several others.

He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Performing Arts Department and the first-in-the-nation Comedic Arts BFA Program at Emerson College, as well as a guest artist teaching in the Drama Division at The Juilliard School. www.nathanieljustiniano.com