About
"A director whose name every theatre lover should commit to memory is Stephen Nicolazzo...theatre craft at its most masterful. Nicolazzo is somehow capable of simultaneously summoning the savage and the sublime, revealing wrought, raging truths, and dark, sexual impulses, wrapped in the smoothest satin"
Maxim Boon, The Music
Stephen is a theatre director and Artistic Director of BRINK, Adelaide. He was Co-Artistic Director of Western Edge 2022-2023 and was a member of the Associate Artist Advisory Panel at Melbourne Theatre Company 2022-2024. He was the founder and Artistic Director of Little Ones Theatre, an independent company focused on innovative queer theatre-making (2009-2022). Stephen studied at The University of Melbourne (2008) and NIDA (Directing, 2010).
He is a Green Room Award winner for Best Direction (The Happy Prince) and has been nominated a further four times (Loaded, Psycho Beach Party, Dracula, and The Moors). His works have won 14 Green Room Awards and been nominated for a total of 45 since 2012. His works have also been nominated for Sydney Theatre Awards, a Victorian Premiers Literary Award, and an AWGIE.
Stephen was also the recipient of the Besen Family Artist Program award with Malthouse Theatre and a PlayKing funding award to work in Singapore with Wild Rice Theatre Company and playwright Alfian Sa'at. He was a member of the 2019 Lincoln Center Theatre Director's Lab, New York City.
He has directed for Melbourne Theatre Company, Malthouse Theatre, Belvoir, Griffin Theatre Company, La Boite Theatre Company, Red Stitch Actor’s Theatre, Arts Centre Melbourne, Arts House, Performance Space, Yirramboi Festival, Brisbane Powerhouse, Brisbane Festival, Darwin Festival, Perth Festival, Adelaide Cabaret Festival, Melbourne Cabaret Festival, Sydney World Pride, Midsumma Festival, Theatre Works, Darebin Arts Speakeasy, fortyfive downstairs and La Mama. His works have been critically acclaimed and toured to sold out houses across the country.
Credits: A Brief Episode (Melbourne Fringe), Shrapnel (fortyfivedownstairs, Hayes Theatre), Loaded (Malthouse Theatre) Looking for Alibrandi (Malthouse Theatre, Belvoir), Loaded-Audio Experience (Malthouse Theatre), Considerable Sexual License (Joel Bray Dance), Merciless Gods (Arts Centre Melbourne, Griffin Theatre Company), and Abigail’s Party (Melbourne Theatre Company). Stephen has also directed Ash Flanders’ End Of. (Griffin Theatre Company, Darebin Arts Speakeasy), Judith Lucy and Denise Scott’s Still Here (Token Entertainment), The Happy Prince (Griffin Theatre Company, La Mama), The Moors (Red Stitch Actors Theatre), Daddy (Joel Bray Dance, Arts House, Arts Centre Melbourne, Brisbane Festival, Perth Festival, Darwin Festival, Liveworks) and Meme Girls (Malthouse Theatre). His work works for Little Ones Theatre include: Vampire Lesbians of Sodom (fortyfive downstairs), Nightingale and the Rose (Theatre Works), Dracula (Theatre Works), Dangerous Liaisons (MTC Neon, Brisbane Powerhouse, Darwin Festival), Salome (Malthouse Theatre Helium), Psycho Beach Party (Theatre Works, Brisbane Festival) and sex.violence.blood.gore (MKA).
Stephen has also been a teaching artist at WAAPA, COLLARTS, Victorian College of the Arts, Monash University, and Melbourne Theatre Company Education. He has worked as guest lecturer, mentor, and director at VCA, WAAPA, NIDA, Monash University, St Martin's Youth Arts Centre, RMIT, YGLAM (Merri Health Queer Youth Initiative), Signal- City of Melbourne, Arts Centre Melbourne, Theatre Works Associate Artist Program, and Melbourne Festival Director’s Lab.
Represented by Liberty Artist Management
