Featured Contributor July 2022: Nicole LaBresh

Nicole’s journey with Motif started with an internship in the summer of 2016. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. A time of Pokémon Go and political upheaval. A time of food trucks on rooftops and the existential dread that comes with being a rising senior in college realizing what she wanted to do was not what she had been studying. While Nicole did not set out to become a theater reviewer, she took a stab at it and, well, the rest is history.

By day, Nicole works at Roger Williams Park Zoo, assisting in the management of photography and body art and watching animals all day (the latter is not technically in her job description, but when in a zoo…). By night… well, she often also does that. 

But when not watching animals, it’s all about theater: Viewing it, writing about it and doing it. She was most recently seen on stage being gay, committing crimes and singing sea shanties as Antonio in The Tempest at RISE, a production two years in the making, having been delayed by the ’rona. Since then, she has become involved in a new work: Permanent Solutions, a play about mental health by local talent Cass Caduto (who, incidentally, was her Sebastian in The Tempest). Nicole appeared in a one-night preview at RISE back in April and will be back for future productions, including one at AS220 this fall. 

Nicole can also be found selling tie-dye on Saturday mornings at the Scituate Farmer’s Market for her autistic brother’s business, T’s by B (fb.com/tsbybrendan). 

Interests outside of theater and writing include travel (more in theory than in practice at this point), music, snuggling with her guinea pig, napping and talking about herself in the third person.