Casey Nicholaw
Casey Nicholaw
Casey Nicholawis an American theatre director, choreographer and performer. He has been nominated for Tony Awards for directing and choreographing The Drowsy Chaperoneand Something Rotten!, for choreographing Monty Python's Spamalot, and choreographing The Book of Mormon, winning for his co-direction of the latter with Trey Parker. He also was nominated for the Drama Desk Awards for Outstanding Direction and Choreography for The Drowsy Chaperoneand Something Rotten!and for Outstanding Choreography for Spamalot...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
CountryUnited States of America
In '92, I got my first Broadway show as a performer - 'Crazy for You.' I was in the ensemble. In fact, I was in eight Broadway shows as a dancer. Seven of them were original shows. That's how I learned to create something from the ground up.
I was in eighth grade when I did my first Junior Theatre show. I was in 'Annie Get Your Gun' as a dancing Indian.
I like bringing comedy to musicals. That's what's so much fun about this show, because the writers are so based in comedy. I've been able to make it dance and sing ? and keep building things ? in a way they're not used to. For me to be able to get people to laugh in dance is huge because it doesn't always happen.
I'm from San Diego. My parents weren't involved in theater, but my mother encouraged my interest in it. She bought me the cassette tape to 'A Chorus Line' and she took me and a friend out of school one day and drove us up to L.A. for a matinee. Afterward, we ate in the cafeteria. I was in junior high school. She saw the direction I was going in.
I moved to New York and couldn't get a job as an actor. And waited tables for so long.
Bouncing ideas off people when you're thinking up comedy is great.
Sometimes you feel like people go, 'Oh, he just does funny dances,' or 'That's cute.' It drives me a little crazy when someone does a dance number where all they do is kick to their head for five minutes, and everyone's like, 'That choreography is amazing.' It takes a lot to choreograph a number that also gets laughs in it.
I was so impressed. I still am. Every time I see Sutton land her jump split I'm blown away.
Momentum is key. We really wanted to get to Broadway this season. I hated the idea of losing anyone in the cast.
I have a Tony Award now. It hasn't changed too much in the theater world, but it gives me entree for film stuff and TV stuff, where people will see me more easily now because they know me.
We've all been through that at one time or another where you escape to something that makes you not feel what you're going through. I think that's what makes people respond on an emotional level.
I look around at people who had success so early and then didn't know what to do with themselves.
I was in 'Seussical,' and I was in a cage onstage in a purple yarn suit singing backup, and I was like: 'I've had it. I can't do this anymore.' I will say for the record that I did love the show, but I was like: 'I want to do something else. I need a little more.'
I was always bossy as a kid. I made my friends do shows that I wrote and would take them on tour from house to house.