Leadership

Meet our New Chair: Prof. Nikkole Salter

Los Angeles-born, OBIE Award-winning actress and writer Nikkole Salter arrived onto the professional scene with her co-authorship and co-performance (with Danai Gurira) of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated play, In the Continuum (ITC). For its Off-Broadway run at Primary Stages and the Perry Street Theatre and for its US State Department and Bloomberg-sponsored international tour, Ms. Salter received an OBIE Award, and the NY Outer Critics Circle’s John Gassner Award for Best New American Play, the Seldes-Kanin fellowship from the Theatre Hall of Fame, and the Global Tolerance Award from the Friends of the United Nations, to name a few. Ms. Salter also received Helen Hayes and Black Theatre Alliance nominations for Best Actress for her performance.

As an actress, Ms. Salter can be seen in Gavin O’Connor’s feature film Pride & Glory starring Ed Norton, Colin Farrell and Jon Voight, and heard as the voice of Laticia in Rockstar Games’ video game release, Midnight Club: Los Angeles. Ms. Salter was most recently seen originating a starring role in McArthur Genius Award, TONY-nominated playwright Dominique Morisseau’s play Mud Row, as Sally Childress, a fictional character based on the real Geraldine Whittington, and as Coretta Scott King in the Broadway production of Robert Schenkkan’s play The Great Society. She is currently starring in the 3rd season of New Amsterdam as Isabel Sarasa, the hospital’s Chief Equity Officer.

As a dramatist, Ms. Salter has written 8 full-length plays, been commissioned for full-length work by 6 institutions, been produced in 5 countries on 3 continents, and been published in 12 international publications. Her work has appeared in over 20 Off-Broadway, regional and international theatres. Ms. Salter is a 2014 MAP Fund Grant recipient, a Eugene O’Neill Theater Center National Playwrights Conference semi-finalist, USA Fellowship nominee, a two-time Playwright’s of New York (PoNY) Fellowship nominee, is currently working on a commission from Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company.

Amid an emerging acting/writing career, Ms. Salter’s deep sense of social responsibility led her to co-found (with NSangou Njikam) and serve as Executive Artistic Director of THE CONTINUUM PROJECT, INC., a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that creates innovative artistic programming for community empowerment and enrichment. Ms. Salter is an active member of the Actors Equity Association, the Screen Actors Guild/American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, and the Actors Center; and sits on the Council of the Dramatists Guild and serves as Chair of the Board of the Theatre Communications Group. She received her BFA in theatre from Howard University and her MFA from New York University’s Graduate Acting Program.

Nikkole Salter