Anthony Nikolchev is a director working at the intersection of theater, film, movement, text, and immersive experience—creating work that blurs the line between narrative story telling and expressionistic movement. His projects range from intimate experimental performances to large-scale interactive productions.

His theater and film work has appeared nationally and internationally, including presentations at La Biennale di Venezia (artistic director Willem Dafoe) and the Grotowski Institute. Known for visually striking staging and psychologically charged storytelling, his productions transform space and bodies into living dramaturgy, where architecture, sound, and movement collide, intimate and unsettling.

Alongside his artistic work, he creates large-scale interactive and branded experiences for global companies including Amazon, Jack in the Box, NFL and Tide, including the second most live-streamed digital event for audiences on Twitch. These projects combine cinematic storytelling with real-time audience participation.

As an actor, he has performed with his company, The Useless Room, at the Venice Biennale, The International Theater Olympics and Summerhall at the EdFringe. Other work includes alongside Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch legends Julie Shanahan and Julie Anne Stanzak in Sam Shay’s Life in this House is Over, the London and Los Angeles touring immersive hit The Day Shall Declare It by Annie Saunders and Sophie Bortolussi, and on film/TV in the Amazon series Undone, CBS’s Criminal Minds and indie films, such as Adam (Venice Film Festival), All These Voices (student Academy Award winner), Like Lambs and Beneath the Green. His original stage performances, including Look, What I Don’t Understand, and The Echoes Off The Walls Underground Are Louder Than Above Me have won Best Actor Awards at the United Solo International Theater Festival Off-Broadway, as well as toured the world.

His writing has appeared in the Mime Journal, HarperCollins’s Daily Celtic Prayers (England) alongside Roberto Bolaño’s texts On Exile, and the St. Petersburg Journal of Theater (Russia).

He has lectured on the topic of "Human Rights and Political Theater" at St. Petersburg's Smolny University, was a guest speaker at the 2017 Cannes Lions International Festival, and has been commissioned to create new work by the Skirball Center in Los Angeles and Dance City Newcastle (UK).

Nikolchev teaches movement for performance at the California Institute of the Arts, and is the co-Artistic Director of the performance company, The Useless Room, along with the more brilliant Gema Galiana.

Selected Press

“Technique and honesty that constitutes a tour de force.”
— Los Angeles Times

“Harrowing in its authenticity.”
— LA Weekly

“A brilliant performer.”
— StageHappenings.com

“Brilliantly dramatized and acted by Nikolchev.”
— TotalTheatre.com

“Nikolchev stands out.”
— Time Out Chicago

Awards

• Best ActorGlendale International Film Festival (2017)

• Best Actor India Cine Film Festival (Mumbai, India) (2017)

• Best Actor United SOLO International Theatre Festival, New York (2012)

• Best Actor, Best International Los Angeles International Underground Film Festival (2012)

• Best Actor United SOLO International Theatre Festival, New York (2011)

Selected Production Press

The (Un)Double

written and created by Anthony Nikolchev

co-direction Gema Galiana

Performed by Anthony Nikolchev, Lukasz Przytarski, Chris Pollick

“Last night, for the second time, I saw The (Un)Double. An extraordinary performance written and directed by Anthony Nikolchev. This precisely choreographed, sonically impeccable, and intellectually sharp performance includes Dostoevsky's novella The Double, but goes far beyond it. The performance interrogates "acting" in theatre/film and in life; identity or, rather, the "double" (at least) identities inhabiting each of us. The performance is focused inside a literal open-wall aluminum framed box, which intentionally cannot contain everything that's going on. The video, sound-score, and performing by Nikolchev, Lukasz Pryztarski, and Chris Polick are superb as they harmonize, diverge, re-assemble, and explore. The media appearance of "WD" who unpacks what it means to be an actor is spot-on. I first saw this performance at the Venice Biannale in June. It has ripened since then. Experiencing it in La MaMa's small theatre brings it hotly close. All in all, an artistic, conceptual, (un)narrational work of rare competence. See it and send people to see it during its 2-week run.”

-Richard Schechner (Editor, TDR)

"if The Useless Room’s The (Un)Double is representative of the work on display in La Biennale di Venezia, please may we have some more?"

Tony Marinelli (Theatre Beyond Broadway)

"In The (Un)Double, we see instead a single being composed of two bodies: two excellent actor-dancers, who are each other's ghost; they follow each other, overlap, exchange, fit together, intertwine, repel each other. As we do every day with the many selves that surround us."

Elena Scolari, PAC PanAcquaCulture - Venice Biennale 2025

"The (Un)Double is a dark mirror. It reflects our fears, our conflicts. It is theatre that does not tell, but shows. It does not explain, but makes you feel. And it forces us to look inside. Even when we don’t want to."
Andrea DiMaso, Notizie Teatrali - Venice Biennale 2025

"The [2025 Biennale] edition directed by Willem Dafoe brought attention back to the centrality of the actor's work. From the masters Schechner, Barba and LaCompte to the new protagonists: from Nikolchev, Castellucci, Milo Rau...A powerful demonstration on the themes of the actor's body comes with the world premiere of The (Un)Double.
Walter Porcedda, gli Stati Generali - Venice Biennale 2025

Past Hope Now

written and directed by Anthony Nikolchev; music by John Isaac Watters

“There is a beauty in the broken and John Isaac Watters fragile and vulnerable delivery is for that reason beautiful, unconventionally so but compelling none the less. He explores alt-country, dusty folk, carnival sideshow crooning, David Lynch soundtracks, Waitsian unconformity and much more besides.

Past Hope Now is timeless in that it can’t be pinned down to any era, it is evocative and nostalgic without tugging unnecessarily at too many heartstrings, it is fresh without trying to be fashionable and it is effortlessly experimental without seeming to try too hard to be clever, though a wonderfully clever musical creation it certainly is. But more than that, the fact that the music comes attached to an expansive and beautifully realised music video cum short film which explores the physical, mental and natural struggles of a couple with their desert surroundings only proves how brilliant music is at carrying an important message when in the right hands.”

-A&R Factory

“When I first watched "Past" part one in a three part art film series, I got goosebumps…. A lesson in conceptual video.”

-F Stoppers

“Creative duo Anthony Nikolchev and Gema Galiana (aka Galiana/Nikolchev) combine the surreal and the mundane with this ambitious extended music video trilogy. Working in collaboration with Polish cinematographer Jakub Klawikowski and singer-songwriter John Isaac Watters, the three-part series is a visually striking exploration of love, loss and the chaos in between.”

-Booooooom TV

Babylon Revisited

Co-directed by Anthony Nikolchev and Don Marcus
Ark Theater Company

“Nikolchev plays all this at a carefully measured pace that is as keen in its style and technique as it is in catching the deep emotional tangle that Charlie is holding in check… Without overplaying his hand, Nikolchev frames Fitzgerald's narrative with poignant loss and urgency.”
— The Berkshire Eagle

“Anthony Nikolchev… turns in a bravura performance in something of a one-man show.”
— WBUR Boston

“Video technology and live theater come together seamlessly… haunting and memorable.”
— The Berkshire Eagle

All the Things You Said You Never Said Before You Thought You Could Ever Say

Written by Anthony Nikolchev

“One of the most interesting and creative performances I’ve seen all year.”
— Social Butterfly Blog

“Brutal honesty to earnest affection and back… a roller coaster ride for the audience.”
— The 411, London

The Echoes off the Walls Underground Are Louder than Your Footsteps Above Me

Written and performed by Anthony Nikolchev

“Remarkable… breathless… astonishing. Nikolchev’s talent as actor and writer is formidable.”
— NyTheatre.com

“Shockingly timely.”
— NyTheatre.com

The Day Shall Declare It

Created by Wilderness
Marylebone Gardens, London

“Particular mention must go to Anthony Nikolchev who managed to add the perfect balance to the piece through both his movement and delivery.”
— Remote Goat

Obejmij Mnie (Put Your Arms Around Me)

Written and directed by Anthony Nikolchev
Wrocław National Puppet Theater, Poland

“A masterpiece of puppet dramatic performances.”
“A brilliant six-character play.”
“Impossible to resist the terrifying beauty of the show.”
— Dziennik Teatralny Wrocław

Dual Citizens

Odyssey Theatre Ensemble

“A jagged fantasia of a memoir… [Nikolchev] inhabits a swath of characters with a technique and honesty that constitutes a tour de force.”
— Los Angeles Times

“GO! … harrowing in its authenticity.”
— LA Weekly

“A kind of Émigré Everyman, brilliantly dramatized and acted by Nikolchev.”
— TotalTheater.com

Get Right

Written by Stephen Louis Grush

“Nikolchev stands out; his volatile Brian alternately repels and attracts.”
— Time Out Chicago

Look, What I Don’t Understand

Written by Anthony Nikolchev

“A one-man tour de force… Nikolchev easily morphs into close to 20 characters.”
— Windy City Times (Critic’s Pick)

“Fascinating and horrifying at the same time… hits us in the solar plexus.”
— Chicago Tribune

“A powerful performance… a unique theatrical experience.”
— The Urban Coaster

“An actor/writer to watch.”
— The Latest and Greatest Arts Blog