Artist Bio

(Bio as of June 2023)

Nigel O’Hearn’s plays have been produced in Edinburgh and New York as part of the International Fringe Festivals there, Chicago, and at various theaters in his hometown of Austin, Texas. From 2009-2012, Nigel served as the artistic director and resident playwright of Palindrome Theatre in Austin, which produced his adaptation of Accidental Death of an Anarchist (best comedy nomination, 2012-2013 Austin Critics Table), his adaptation/translation A Hedda Gabler (finalist, 2012 International Ibsen Festival, National Theatre of Norway), and the Equity workshop premiere of his play The Attic Space. In early 2014, Nigel moved to Chicago, where his productions include: “they”: a lamentation (Chicago Fringe Festival); Circle Machine – an adaptation of Chuck Mee’s Full Circle, co-written with Emma Stanton and Thom Pasculli (Oracle Productions); An Alliance of Brats, an adaptation of Ibsen’s The League of Youth (Illinois State University and Heartland Theatre Company, Normal, Il); and A Hedda Gabler (Red Tape Theatre), which saw its fifth production at Wichita State University this past November. Nigel received an MA from the University of Chicago, where he was an Arts, Sciences, and Culture Graduate Collaborative Grant recipient for co-developing a scientific study that gauged the cognitive impact of reading poetry on Alzheimer’s patients and their primary caregivers. Nigel’s most recent play, Song We Forgot to Sing: a play in several scenes and poems, is a verse dramatization of that study process, which received an Equity reading at the Logan Center in 2017.