Meet Nicole Orabona | Actor, Director, Producer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Nicole Orabona and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Nicole, how has your perspective on work-life balance evolved over time?
Finding balance has been one of the biggest and at times most challenging aspects in my life and career! Many artists, myself included, did some serious re-evaluating of how we spend our time when Covid hit. I’ve spent the last 4 years trying to work less and and make systems for myself that allow me to enjoy my life and my home.

In my 20’s and early 30’s I was always really focused on the next gig and packing my schedule as full as possible. When the world shut down in 2020 and I could no longer work, I tried to focus on things I could control – gardening, cooking good food, creating for creating’s sake. And, surprise surprise, I found I LIKED doing these things! I realized I needed to restructure my life to make those hobbies sustainable.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I’m the co-founder of CirqueSaw, an award-winning production company creating remote theatre, animation, and zines. My partner, Nathan Leigh, and I founded it in 2020 when we realized we wanted to create our own opportunities for work that was creatively satisfying and aligned with our values. I had nearly a decade of experience in immersive and interactive theatre, while he had decades of experience in composing, coding, and animating. We started with micro-shorts during lockdown, and by the Winter of 2023 we premiered our first remote theatre piece, “POV: You Are an AI Achieving Consciousness,” after having an idea for an experimental, interactive web interface.

“POV:AI” is a digitally native immersive and interactive piece that explores the intersection of art, philosophy, and technology, using a custom interactive platform to add new layers of interactivity to virtual performance. We had a sold-out first run that led to two additional sold-out runs, and multiple awards, including being named Immersive Production of the Year by the Young-Howze Theatre Journal, one of No Proscenium’s Best Immersive Experiences of 2023, and was honored with a special editor’s award from No Proscenium for Special Recognition for Merging Technology & Immersive Performance. We were absolutely delighted that what started as a this weird little experiment made for no money ended up being enjoyed and appreciated not only by our friends but by total strangers! It was an incredible experience that gave us the encouragement to keep developing this work knowing there was an audience for it.

Nathan is immunocompromised, so creating remote experiences stems for us from a need to create work that is accessible to ourselves and our audience members.

A huge part of CirqueSaw’s ethos involves recognizes that producing work which engages with social issues requires that we practice our values. We believe that underpaying artists from marginalized communities does nothing to end their marginalization and are therefore committed to making sure all people involved in our productions are paid a fair rate for the work they do. Our fundraising and programming is built around a goal of maintaining a humane schedule and workload for all involved. It is central to our work that we only produce art which is achievable within our means and without relying on underpaid and unpaid labor.

All our work is presented by sliding scale donation, with the suggested donation being whatever you typically make in an hour. If you are immunocompromised, elderly, or disabled, we invite you to attend for free. With this structure we have made back our (admittedly small) investment, paid ourselves, and even gave back to the community by donating proceeds to the Algorithmic Justice League.

This work is not easy by any means! But it’s infinitely more satisfying to control your own means of production.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
So while I was born in LA, spent my early childhood years there, and later a year of college, I’ve since spent the last decade+ on the East Coast, so I’ll go ahead and give a NYC itinerary. Also I don’t do indoor dining or indoor experiences without a mask, so these would all be places to eat outside or if going inside definitely masked for safety.

For food, I’m vegetarian and one of my favorite spots is Red Bamboo in the West Village, so that’d be a whole day of village exploring including Washington Square Park, and one of my fave lil shops Greenwich Letterpress. For bars I’d have to hit up my pal Annie and Andy Shaner’s spot in Brooklyn Vacations which has the cutest rooftop bar. Oh, also, the Strand is a must hit for booklovers. I also like to take the Staten Island ferry with friends cause you get a free look at the Statue of Liberty without paying for it!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I need to shout out my partner, Nathan Leigh. He is my partner in life and creativity, and co-founder of our production company CirqueSaw. Not only does he write incredible shows for me to perform, he keeps me sane and keeps me laughing.

Website: www.nicoleorabona.com and www.cirquesaw.com

Instagram: @knuckle_sando

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicole-orabona/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/norabona

Image Credits
Samantha Szekely Natalia Yandyganova Mia Isabella Jessica Wilkowski