Nicole A. Watson
Director
“Blues for an Alabama Sky' at the Guthrie Theater is a work to savor. Director Nicole A. Watson's production has Broadway glamour wrapped in heartbreak.” — Rohan Preston, Star Tribune
“Based on the fluidity and delicate intricacies placed through the scenes, no one would believe that this was Watson’s first time directing an opera. ”
Jamaican by birth. New Yorker by choice. Nicole A. Watson is a freelance director and educator with an interest in new play development and plays that deal with the past. A former history teacher, Nicole started directing in 2008 and works in NYC as well as universities and theaters throughout the US. She is currently the Associate Artistic Director at the McCarter Theatre Center, after holding the same position at Round House Theatre for 2 1/2 years.
Nicole is a member of the New Georges Jam and has worked with New Dramatists, the Lark Play Development Center, the Fire this Time Festival, the New Black Fest, the Women's Project Theater, The 52nd Street Project, Signature Theater, and Working Theater. Credits include Jocelyn Bioh’s School Girls; or, the African Mean Girls Play, Eleanor Burgess’ The Niceties, Lucas Hnath’s A Doll’s House Part 2, Lynn Nottage’s Sweat, Robert Schenkkan's The Great Society, the world premiere of Kevin R. Free’s Night of the Living N-Word (NY Fringe Festival), a workshop of Lenelle Moïses Merit (New Black Fest), Katori Hall's The Mountaintop, the world premiere of the opera Approaching Ali, (Washington National Opera at the Kennedy Center), the world premiere of Johnna Adams’ World Builders at the Contemporary American Theater Festival, Eboni Hogan’s Foreign Bodies (2013 Poetic License Festival/2012 Women’s Center Stage), We Play For the Gods (Women’s Project), BlindSight: A Melodic Hypothesis (an original work for the Women Center Stage Festival), and Daniel McCoy's Eli and Cheryl Jump (NY Fringe Festival)
She has been a guest director at A.C.T's Conservatory (Las Meninas), Smith College (Our Lady of Kibeho), North Carolina School of the Arts (The Piano Lesson, Joe Turner's Come and Gone), NYU (Born Bad, Milk Like Sugar, Ti-Jean and His Brothers), and Long Island University (Twelfth Night). She also adapted and directed Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor for Two River Theater’s Little Shakespeare).
Nicole assisted Bill Rauch on the Oregon Shakespeare Festival/Seattle Rep premiere of The Great Society and was the assistant director on August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson at the Signature Theater directed by Ruben Santiago- Hudson. In 2013, she served as an assistant director and production associate on the August Wilson Century Cycle for WNYC Radio.
Nicole has also had the pleasure to assist Joe Haj, Dominique Serrand, Joanna Settle, Giovanna Sardelli, Kwame Kwei-Armah, and André DeShields. She is a long-time volunteer at the 52nd Street Project where she directed A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Two Gentlemen of Verona with their teen ensemble. She was a 2015 Artist in Residence at the Drama League where she developed We Sat in the Death House, a devised movement piece with MJ Kaufman. Nicole is a 2013 Drama League Directing Fellow and the 2011 recipient of the League of Professional Theatre Women’s Josephine Abady Award. Nicole was an invited artist at the 2011 Voice and Visions Retreat where she worked with playwright Dominique Morisseau on Paradise Blue. She is a co-founder of the Working Theater Directors Salon which she produced for 5 years working with directors Luke, Harlan, Rebecca Martinez, and Dina Vovsi.
Nicole has been a teaching artist at the McCarter Theatre, the Tribeca Film Institute, the New York Historical Society and the Museum of the City of New York, where she has both taught and developed curriculum for their programs. Nicole is an alum of both the Lincoln Center Directors Lab and the Women’s Project Directors Lab and a member of the SDC. BA: History, Yale. MA: NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study.
Nicole lives in New Jersey with her husband, playwright Tim J. Lord and their dog, Henry.
Click here to view Nicole's resume.
“Night of the Living N-Word featured strong direction from Nicole A. Watson. Watson had a strong vision that propelled the action forward. With the festival setting being a hindrance, Watson and her team decided to play with simplicity. The black and white props from Joshua Coakley were a beautiful touch. It helped bring out the comedic elements of Free’s text.””
“The powerful performances in an intimately directed production of World Builders will leave audiences questioning the ideas of imagination and insanity in their own world.”
“Sometimes, you can just feel actors inviting you to share their joy in being someone else for a spell. The experience is a special brand of mutual exhilaration: their wonderful privilege, in having the opportunity to conjure another soul for you, and yours, in the knowledge that they are going through this process for your edification.
These thoughts come to mind as you watch the women of the playful and piquant “School Girls; or, the African Mean Girls Play,” Jocelyn Bioh’s charming comedy of adolescent angst. A satirical study of the universal insecurities and hierarchical struggles of West African teenage girls, the play receives first-class treatment from director Nicole A. Watson and a cast eager to spread the aforesaid joy.”
REPRESENTATION
Nicole is represented by Rachel Ellicott at Paradigm Talent Agency.
rellicott@paradigmagency.com/ 212.897.6400