Nora Cole

 

A Brief History of Thespian Me......

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Outstanding performance credits include the revival of New York Times acclaimed performance (Audelco Award nominee) in Rinde Eckert’s Obie Award winning, two character chamber opera, And God Created Great Whales (Drama League Award Nominee) at the Culture Project. Originated and commissioned by the Foundry Theatre at Dance Theatre Workshop. Other engagements include the Red Cat (L. A.), the Barbicon (London), Bonn Bienale Festival (Germany), Playmakers Repertory, MassMoca and Baltimore Center Stage.  Also created the role of The Bride in Eckert’s Highway Ulysses (World Premiere) at A. R. T. directed by Robert Woodruff  and featured in American Theatre Magazine. 

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Other career highlights include work with George C. Wolfe:  Caroline or Change, Royal National Theatre, On the Town (Broadway), Jellly’s Last Jam (Broadway) opposite Gregory Hines and the National Tour opposite Maurice Hines.  Regional credits include:  Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Fences and To Kill a Mockingbird at Geva, Doubt, Milwaukee Rep, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Studio Arena, On Golden Pond, and Avenue X, New Harmony and the O’Neill, Jacques Brel is Alive and Well, Santa Fe Stages, The Colored Museum, Hartford Stage, The Good Times Are Killing Me, Second Stage and Elizabeth Swados', Groundhog, Manhattan Theatre Club.  She has also singly performed the epic Langston Hughes poem, Ask Your Mama:  12 Moods for Jazz with an original score by Hale Smith. 

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Theatre Communications Group/Fox Foundation Resident Actor Fellowship for Distinguished Achievement recipient. Fellowship used to develop first full length play, Katherine’s Colored Lieutenant based on collection of 50 letters written to her Aunt, Katherine Cole during WWII by her fiancé, Tuskegee Airman, Robert S. Lawery.  World premiere production mounted by fellowship host theatre, Geva Theatre Center and directed by David Schweizer, received outstanding reviews including a personal letter of excellence from Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, David Cay Johnston.

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SOLO SHOWS

Voices of the Spirits in My Soul  (Audelco nominee) Last performed at St. Albans Church in Queens, NY lieu of two morning services celebrating the Martin Luther King holiday. Other venues include Geva, University of Southern Indiana, York College, 2007 National Black Theatre Festival and encore engagement in 2009 for NBTF’s 20th Anniversary.  Based in part on Kentucky family slave history researched from an ample collection of family letters and photographs.  First produced at Eastern Connecticut State University where Ms. Cole was an adjunct, director and coach intermittently for twelve years.  NYC productions  later presented by Richard Allen Center for Culture and Art’s Seaport Salon. 

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Oliva’s Opus, an ode to adolescence. First read at Second Stage and later presented at venues including the Negro Ensemble Company, Primary Stages, the 1993 NBTF and the Castillo Cultural Center. 

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15+ years with Vinnette Carroll's Urban Arts Corp (NYC) and repertory company (Ft. Lauderdale). Productions included, Your Arms Too Short to Box with God (Broadway, National & European tours), MEDEA (Title role), Boogie Woogie Rumble of a Dream Deferred, and pre-Broadway productions When Hell Freezes Over I’ll Skate (Kennedy Center) and ALICE. Her article, Vinnette Carroll: The First Black Woman Broadway Director was published in the 2012 Summer/Fall quarterly, Black Masks. www.blackmasks.com

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Toured annually for several years with Woodie King Jr.'s National Black Touring Circuit production, I Have A Dream as Coretta Scott King.  Tour highlights: Festivals in Brighton and Birmingham, England and the first National Black Theatre Festival.

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Television appearances include The Cosby Mystery Movies, All My Children, Loving  (I delivered Trish's baby!), Another World, The Guiding Light, the pilot, H.E.L.P. and numerous commercials and voice-overs.  Performed for WNYC Public Radio's Selected Shorts series with Kingdom of the Sun.

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Louisville, Kentucky native. Trained and performed with Louisville Children’s Theatre (Stage One), the West Side Players and Louisville Shakespeare in the Park.  Attended Beloit College, Chicago Conservatory and earned a BFA from the Goodman School of Drama at the Art Institute of Chicago.  Throughout career studied dance with Frank Hatchett, Pepsi Bethel and Barbara Fraser.  

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Other Honors

Actors Theatre of Louisville Women in Music Award,

Spencer Cherashore Fund Individual Artist Grant,

Joseph Jefferson & Connecticut Critics Circle Award nominee 

Hedgebrook, Women's Writing Residency alumna

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