Mover. Shaker. Theatre-Maker.
SAG-AFTRA / AEA
Dramatic Reel 2024
Nicole Orabona is a collaborative theatre-maker.
Nicole Orabona (they/she), is an award-winning actor, director, producer, zine maker, and committer to the bit. They believe in the power of a stupid idea and thrive in collaborative and unconventional environments. As an actor, they have worked on over 30 interactive productions and prestige immersive events for clients that include Netflix and MGM. On-screen you can see them opposite Claire Danes in Hulu’s “Fleishman is in Trouble” or recurring as Det. Arielle Lehane on “Law and Order.”
With their partner Nathan Leigh, they founded CirqueSaw Productions, a DIY production company exploring the intersections of art and technology. CirqueSaw’s debut digital production, POV: You Are an AI Achieving Consciousness won the 2023 Young-Howze Theatre Award for Immersive Production of the Year, was listed as one of No Proscenium’s Best Immersive Experiences of 2023, given a 2024 No Pro Editor’s award for Special Recognition for Merging Technology & Immersive Performance, and was nominated for Outstanding Remote Experience and Reader’s Special Award. Their short films have been featured in multiple film festivals. After a year as co-artistic director, Nicole now serves as the marketing director of Emit Theatre, as well as a company member of Infinite Variety Productions and Drama Desk Nominated Live in Theater. She was a member of the 2022 Moxie Arts Incubator cohort, 2023 recipient of a Mass Cultural Council Pandemic Recovery Grant, and a finalist for the 2023 R.Evolución Latina Doreen Montalvo “Do It Anyway” scholarship. Along with Nathan Leigh, Nicole was named a 2024 Creative of the Year by the Young-Howze Theatre Journal.
In their free time, you can find Nicole making zines, gardening, inventing cocktails, and forcing their cat to cuddle.
Proud member of AEA, SAG-AFTRA, and Ring of Keys.
What’s new…
The critically-acclaimed POV: You are an AI Achieving Consciousness wins a special editor’s award from No Proscenium
Special Recognition for Merging Technology & Immersive Performance
labRats to Premiere at From Home Fest
POV:AI Wins Special Recognition for Merging Technology & Immersive Performance
“There’s no greater embodiment of artistic pioneers pushing the digital space forward as CirqueSaw. It was an utterly invigorating way to start the new year off with attending POV, seeing how just two creators, Nathan Leigh and Nicole Orabona, could stir such deep thoughts and heavy emotions within me through a “point-and-click” webpage experience.”
- Patrick B. McLean, No Proscenium
Despite all your rage, you are still just a rat in a cage. Luckily, you're also a rat who's been outfitted with a neural implant that allows you to communicate telepathically with the other rats in your cage. Maybe that'll help.
labRats is a new digitally native interactive performance by the award-winning duo cirqueSaw. Pulling equally from classic games, silent films, and a generous helping of Lewis Carroll, the piece seeks to blur the line between reality and unreality, between wonder and horror. Audiences play as lab rats in an experiment beyond their control who have to work together to take control of their lives. Whether they choose to escape, take over the lab, or deconstruct the fabric of the reality of their experience itself is entirely up to them.
written by Nathan Leigh
performed by Nicole Orabona
More Information Here
Press
“The writing of the show is clever, heady and at times very meta, all calmly delivered by an unflappable Nicole Orabona as the programmer. As sole performer in the show, the weight of the production is firmly on their shoulders. They speak concisely, never slipping…It is Orabona’s stunning performance from the other side of a screen that guides the entire experience and grounds us…”
Edward Mylechreest, No Proscenium
“Orabona’s skill and dedication bends reality to their will.”
The Young-Howze Theatre Journal
“Nicole Orabona...flow(s) in and out of several characters with ease. The entire piece rings with specificity.”
Adrienne Sowers, The Reviews Hub
“In one of her five roles, Nicole Orabona portrays a nurse with enough bark and scowl to shame Nurse Ratched.”
Jonathan Mandell, New York Theater
“My own favorite encounters included...the Mad Scientist (an adorably twitchy Nicole Orabona).”
Rachel Kerry, New York Theatre Review
“…Orabona seals the cracks in her character with a strict, but shaded, rendition.”
Omar Alejandro, Theatre is Easy
CONTACT
Agent - Carrie Park, Park Artists Group
contact@parkartistsgroup.com
Manager - Matt Ilczuk, Entertainment Lab
NY@entlab.la