Nick Hope

Nick Hope's life has been anything but conventional. With high academic achievement at age 14 and a desire to make the Hollywood myth of the rebel his own, Nick decided to leave school and head down the unbeaten path. As a teenager he worked many odd jobs including sifting through landfills, junk yards and forests for scrap tires; teaching dance lessons; and working at his uncle's bar in Montana as a janitor and dishwasher. In between he managed to get himself parts in local theatre. At age 19 through a twist of fate he found himself in a remote part of the Welsh countryside where, in the blackest of night, he found himself recreating the Greek mysteries of Eleusis, and engaging in initiation rituals of the most arcane kind. While in Wales he studied with a mélange of international theatre teachers including Nicolás Núñez of the Taller de Investigación Teatral at the National University of Mexico, Christopher Sivertsen and Maria Sendow of the Awake Projects and Song of The Goat Theatre, Poland, Mike Chase from The Mask Studio, Stroud, Enrique Pardo and others. From there he made his way to London to study with the French clown and theatre teacher Philippe Gaulier. While in Europe Nick came into contact with and was influenced by Phelim McDermott of Improbable Theatre, Simon Mcburny of Théâtre de Complicité, Derevo, and Avner The Eccentric among others. He had the unique privilege of performing to sold out audiences at the Edinburgh Theatre Festival, and gained exposure to writers, directors, and actors from all over the world. Upon his return to the US he studied Goethean phenomenology which included botany, color theory, weather, projective geometry, embryology, physiology, myth, and Jungian psychology.