Theater Director/Playwright

Nicole Greevy

Official Title: Performing Instructor, Education

“It’s absolutely possible to blend science and the arts; you just have to think creatively and be passionate about what you do. And know that using the arts to teach science is fairly new and still fairly rare, but if you believe in it, you can persuade people to let you do it. Once they see how effective it is, they want to see more.”

Nicole wrote her first play when she was 8 years old and performed it for her Girl Scout Troop. The characters were all puppets made out of toilet paper rolls. Great recycling, Nicole! Little did she suspect that 30 years later, she’d be doing the same thing, this time for her job - just with better puppets. Nicole’s school didn’t have much of a drama program, so she put on plays with her friends for clubs, participated in drama festivals, and took acting classes at the local community college.

In college, Nicole majored in Acting and auditioned for WCS’s Wildlife Theater program, the Central Park Zoo-based theater company that inspires audiences to learn - and care - more about our natural world through interactive and audience participatory performances that use drama, puppetry, games, and songs. She was hired and has been there ever since. At the time, the Theater program was just beginning, and so there were many opportunities to help write new material and create the shape of the program.

If she’s not writing and directing short plays and puppet shows with a natural history or conservation theme, Nicole’s busy casting and supervising the ensemble of actors, and also overseeing the technical elements of the shows. Essentially, she’s writer, director, producer, artistic director, stage manager and actor all rolled in one.

Nicole feels very lucky to have such a creative job that allows her to connect her two big passions: theater and the environment. Her favorite part is rehearsing new plays. She loves working with the actors to figure out what the show will look like, and she especially loves the thrill of seeing a new play performed for the first time in front of an audience. Nicole says that theater is a very collaborative field, and since she really likes working with other people, it suits her well. She also believes that theater can be a vital part of conservation education. Many people learn things better by being shown, not told, and theater offers a way to get across some pretty complex things in ways that are easily understandable. Plus, when you can make a normally dry topic funny and entertaining, people are more likely to emotionally respond to it, and then it’s easy to make them care about the subject.

Inspired to do some theater in your local community? Check out our Education Projects.

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