James Nicola's Email & Phone

Jim Nicola Artistic Director James C. Nicola has been the artistic director of New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW) since 1988. Under his guidance, NYTW has remained steadfast to its founding commitment of nurturing both established and emerging theatre artists, promoting collaboration and bold experimentation with theatrical forms. Mr. Nicola initiated an extensive series of workshop opportunities including summer residencies and minority theatre artist fellowships, and has forged a unique community of theatre artists, The Usual Suspects, a group of writers, directors, designers, and actors, who form the core of NYTW's artist development activities. As artistic director, Mr. Nicola has been instrumental in the development of many NYTW world premieres, including Claudia Shear's Blown Sideways Through Life? and Dirty Blonde,? Jonathan Larson's Rent,? Ivo van Hove's productions of More Stately Mansions? and A Streetcar Named Desire,? Doug Wright's Quills,? and Tony Kushner's Homebody/Kabul. Before joining NYTW, Mr. Nicola spent nine years at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., first as a National Endowment for the Arts Directing Fellow and later as a Producing Associate where he directed productions including Marsha Norman's ? night Mother,? Christopher Durang's The Marriage of Bette and Boo,? and Emily Mann's Still Life. From 1975 to 1980, Mr. Nicola was a casting coordinator for the New York Shakespeare Festival where he developed his continuing, passionate commitment to new voices in the theatre. Mr. Nicola's other directing credits include Leonard Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti? and Gilbert and Sullivan's Trial by Jury? at the WPA Theatre, John Guare's Landscape of the Body? at the Studio Theatre, and Ernest Joselovitz's Flesh Eaters? and Jessie's Land? at the New Playwrights Theatre. Mr. Nicola fueled his love of theater during the early 1970's when he was an assistant director at The Young Vic/National Theatre of Great Britain and an assistant stage manager at London's Royal Court Theatre, where he worked on Athol Fugard's Boesman and Lena,? the first time Fugard had been allowed out of South Africa. Mr. Nicola is a graduate of Tufts University.