ABOUT
Nickolas Vaughan is a multidisciplinary artist, director, and producer working across theater, film, and immersive experiences.
He is the co-founder of Show:UP!, an immersive theatrical dining experience that was among the first Black-led creative teams working in interactive theater, and an early adopter of integrating social media and technology into live performance.
As an actor, Nickolas has performed on prominent stages across Washington, D.C., New York, Los Angeles, and Iceland. He has also produced and written three original one-person shows, 'Til You Make It, Project: Nick Vaughan, and Let Me Check In The Back, presented at venues including The Flea Theater in New York, the TAG Solo Festival in Los Angeles, and the WACO Theater Center's 2024 Artistic Program, We the People.
His producing work extends to television, including HBO Max's Emmy-winning series We're Here and the docuseries Swiping America.
His work has been recognized with grants and fellowships, including the Franklin Furnace Grant for Performance Art.
Nickolas most recently served as Creative Director for Still Here: The Live Experience at Tina Knowles' WACO Theater Center, a site-specific performance and gallery exhibition on Black women and HIV/AIDS staged inside hair salon environments across Los Angeles, Baton Rouge, and Atlanta. In this role, he assembled and led a team of more than 70 artists, and created original video, animation, and musical score for the project, supported by Gilead Sciences.
A graduate of Howard University's Department of Theatre Arts, Nickolas continues to build work that moves fluidly between performance, film, and immersive design.
WORKS
The STILL HERE Live Experience is a bold, site-specific production Creative Directed by Nickolas Vaughan alongside williambryantmiles and presented by WACO Theater Center (Los Angeles), led by Artistic Director Tina Knowles. The production transforms an intimate hair salon environment into a 360-degree world of performance, visual art, documentary film, and interactive installation exploring the complexity of Black women's experiences with HIV/AIDS.
True to Nickolas Vaughan's site-specific approach, the work meets its audience where Black women have always gathered and built community: the hair salon. In addition to his role as Creative Director, Vaughan composed the original music, created animation, and designed all video and projection elements of the production.
STILL HERE Live Experience
GALLERY
Still Here made its world premiere in September 2025 at the iconic Dream Girls Hair Salon in Los Angeles — where it was the subject of a robust feature in Essence Magazine — before embarking on a Southern tour to Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Atlanta, Georgia. The STILL HERE Live Experience is supported by a grant from Gilead Sciences.
For more information on Still Here visit www.wacotheatercenter.com
Let Me Check In The Back
Let Me Check In The Back throws out the rulebook. What begins as an artist talk-back with the eccentric, self-aggrandized performance artist Ajani XYZ quickly unravels into something far more unexpected — a mind-bending, shape-shifting solo performance that refuses to stay in its lane. Through a seamless blend of performance art, comedy, and multimedia, the lines between reality and narrative dissolve, leaving the audience to question what they are watching — and who they are watching it with.
At its core, the work is an excavation of identity — who we are when no one is looking, what persona we have carefully crafted for the world to consume, and what happens when we lose the thread of our own story. Exploring Black gay identity and the transformative power of self-love, Let Me Check In The Back offers an experience that is as surprising as it is deeply felt.
The production was awarded the prestigious Franklin Furnace Grant for Performance Art and made its world premiere at WACO Theater Center in Los Angeles as part of their We The People Festival. The work was subsequently presented at the Bed-Stuy Art House in New York City.
Photos: Adrian Javon & J'Quan Jarrel
*This work was made possible, in part, by the Franklin Furnace FUND 2023-24, supported by SHS Foundation, Silicon Valley Community Foundation, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the members and friends of Franklin Furnace Archive.
Project: Nick Vaughan
Project: Nick Vaughan is a one-man show that defies categorization — and does so entirely on purpose. Born out of frustration with the state of theatre, the scarcity of compelling roles for artists like him, and the relentless pressure to fit neatly into a box, Nickolas Vaughan created Project: Nick Vaughan as an act of creative liberation. A deconstruction of the one-man show format, the work refuses to limit itself to the traditional trinity of acting, singing, and dancing — instead reaching into every creative fiber of its creator's being.
Through a series of original vignettes and sketch comedy, Nickolas draws on digital storytelling, photo manipulation, music and orchestral composition, lip sync, stand-up comedy, and design to construct a vivid, genre-defying evening that explores nostalgia, melancholy, sexuality, freedom, and Blackness. The result is not simply a show — it is a creative offering. An unfiltered, unapologetic portrait of an artist refusing to be anything less than everything he is.
Images: Lucy Kreutz
Project: Nick Vaughan was presented at the iconic Flea Theater in New York City and directed by williambryantmiles.
'Til You Make It
'Til You Make It is a one-man show written, produced, and performed by Nickolas Vaughan — a raw, deeply personal exploration of the fragility of a young man searching for confidence in all the wrong places. Faced with crippling self-doubt and an unrelenting inner critic, he must find his voice, reclaim his worth, and learn to let go. Through acting, singing, and dancing, Nickolas weaves together an evening of original work that is equal parts vulnerable, theatrical, and deeply human.
The show made its world premiere at Thymele Arts Center in Los Angeles and has since seen three productions, including a celebrated appearance at the TAG Solo Studio Festival in Los Angeles in 2019, and an encore performance in New York City. 'Til You Make It was directed by William Bryant Miles and Chantal Nchako.
GALLERY
 The Nickolas Vaughan Show'Til You Make It Thymele Arts Los Angeles, CA |  Pizza Boy - Short Film |
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 Intoxicated (Music Video)Artist: Aaryan Shah Director of Photography: Elias Ginsberg Directors: Cody Remillard, Christian Korpi & Aaryan Shah |  Project: Nick VaughanThe Flea Theater New York, NY Photo: Louisiana Kreutz |
 Project: Nick VaughanThe Flea Theater New York, NY Photo: Louisiana Kreutz |  We're Here (HBO)Photo: Justin Machnik |
 Marcus; Or The Secret Of SweetStudio Theatre Washington, DC |  Our TownFord's Theatre Washington, DC Photo by T. Charles Erickson |
 The Piano LessonThe Hangar Theatre Ithaca, NY Thomas Hoebbel Photography |  Our TownFord's Theatre Washington, DC Photo by T. Charles Erickson |
 ShadowboxerKay Theatre College Park, MD |  Helen Hayes Awards 2013 |
 Piano Lesson, Hangar TheatreThomas Hoebbel Photography |  25th Annual Putname County Spelling Bee |
 Locomotion, John F. Kennedy Center |  Dreamgirls, Signature Theatre |
 Shadowboxer |  Piano Lesson+Thomas Hoebbel Photography |
