Nick Leavens is a director, writer, producer, entrepreneur, and consultant. His focus as a director, producer, and Artistic Director is on new works. 

UPCOMING WORK:

Nick is currently in postproduction for Unicornland, a series he directed, written by Lucy Gillespie, premiering this fall. 

His play Beer will be workshopped this August at the Oregon Performance Lab in Eugene directed by Tony nominated director Wilson Milam.

BIOGRAPHY:

As a director Nick has worked at the Ensemble Studio Theatre, Atlantic Theater, Naked Angels, HERE Arts Center, the Bushwick Starr, The Flea Theatre, Studio 42, The Brick, The New York International Fringe Festival, Stella Adler, At Hand Theatre, Ugly Rhino, CAPS LOCK Theatre, Crashbox Theatre, Active Theater, SITEfest, the New York Arab-American Comedy Festival, and Vital Theater. Directing highlights include: Lieutenant of Inishmore (assistant director, Broadway/off-Broadway), The House of Von Macrame (The Management at the Bushwick Starr), Joan Jett of Ark, Moonbase (The Flea Theatre), Drunk Art Love, Unpleasant Men, Research: a novel for performance (|the claque|). 

Nick is the Founder and Artistic Director of |the claque|, your favorite arts and performance conglomerate based in New York City. |the claque| is a performing arts support organization dedicated to identifying challenges and problems in the arts and creating artistic programmatic solutions to address them. By both creating excellent work and heightening the level of discourse in the arts, this approach is designed to encourage artists, allow them to thrive, fostering an adaptive and collegial approach. |the claque| has been operating since 2010 and growing ever since. Through Nick's leadership at |the claque| he has developed dozens of plays, employed hundreds of artists, started the careers of many young producers, and created a dozen programs serving the New York theatrical community.

Outside of directing and |the claque|, Nick is an independent consultant for not-for-profits and the performing arts, working on a wide range of projects. He was the Project Manager with The Anna Deavere Smith Pipeline Project, working in New York, Baltimore, Berkeley, Philadelphia and other locations throughout the country. He has active projects with New York based companies the Bushwick Starr, Broadway for All, and Theatre is Easy. He is a freelance consultant with GB Consulting Associates and in the past worked with them on The Sheen Center and Inwood Academy. Nick also is a freelance casting director for film and theatre, his work soon to be hitting the screen in independent feature Me and Lizzie.

Nick has over fifteen years of experience in arts management, having worked in a range of positions at The Museum of Modern Art, Atlantic Theater, Sheen Center, Bay Street Theatre and other institutions where he built experience in finance, project management, board development, strategic planning, social media development, and endowment management. Additionally, Nick has been involved with a variety of start-up companies as both a founder and advisor ranging from not-for-profit companies as well as commercial ventures such as McClure's Pickles. He was also the President/Co-founder of vanity production company Coleavens Industries, was the Artistic Director/Producer of the New York Arab-American Comedy Festival in 2010 and the Producer of The Funny in 2004, 2005. He has worked as a freelance casting director, produced hundreds of plays, events, films, and experiences in New York City and beyond. While the budgets of every project has varied from barebones to big-bucks, there has been one consistency, a commitment to quality.

Nick's writing has been seen at The Flea Theatre, CAPS LOCK Theatre, Fault Line Theatre, The Vital Theatre, and the September Play Festival. His full lengths include Beer, Lords, and Ann(ed), all part of his Northumberland play trilogy.