Scholar Bio

Nick was born in Anchorage, Alaska, grew up in El Paso, Texas, and attended high school at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachussetts. Nick has been involved with the theater since the age of seven and has acted in more than 50 plays around the world. He graduated magna cum laude in Theater from Northwestern University, where he founded and directed The Ensemble, an alternative student dramatic group, and received the Walton Outstanding Senior award by the Northwestern theater faculty. After college, he studied the work of Bertolt Brecht in Berlin with a fellowship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). As a Mitchell Scholar, he continued his special interest in Samuel Beckett by studying for an M.Litt in Drama Studies at Trinity's Samuel Beckett Centre. Nick stayed in Dublin following his Mitchell year in order to expand his masters research into a PhD, which he received from Trinity in 2009. While a postgraduate student, Nick taught classes part-time in the drama department, tutored students with disabilities, and worked as a freelance actor, director, and writer. In 2006 he was awarded the inaugural Samuel Beckett Fellowship from the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism in support of his research into performance of Beckett's prose. He was a board member and later artistic director of Painted Filly Theatre, an independent theatre company focused on new writing. With Painted Filly he produced ten productions between 2006 and 2009, including four consecutive years of 100 Minutes: Ten New Plays about Now. He also directed his own translations of Ernst Toller, Franz Kafka, and Max Frisch in the Samuel Beckett Theatre, and toured his version of Toller's Masse Mensch to the Volksbühne in Berlin. After three years of teaching full-time at TCD on a short-term basis, he now holds a long-term position as Lecturer in Drama. He continues to work both academically and practically in the theatre in Dublin, and travels widely in Europe, the U.S., and Asia to present guest lectures, workshops, and performances. He will marry Emily Jeffers, whom he met in Dublin shortly after his Mitchell year, in 2012.