BIO
Nicole Kempskie is an award-winning multidisciplinary writer whose work spans multiple genres and forms. As a librettist and lyricist, she has explored her passion for writing about complex and interesting women of all ages with her musicals The Order of Things (O’Neill NMTC Semi-finalist), Mother of the Year (The York 4@15), It’s About Time (The Duplex; Off-Broadway Alliance Mentorship Project), and Helen on 86th St., all with composer Robby Stamper.
Helen on 86th St., adapted from Wendi Kaufman’s New Yorker short story, premiered in New York in 2011, is published and licensed by Playscripts, Inc., and has been produced across the U.S. and internationally. The screenplay adaptation has been awarded a Stowe Story Labs Fellowship, was a runner-up for the ISA Fast Track Fellowship, was an International Family Film Festival Screenplay winner, and has been a London Film Awards Screenplay finalist, Inroads Screenwriting Fellowship finalist, and a Final Draft Big Break quarter-finalist. Her television pilot, Coop, was a semi-finalist in the Table Read my Screenplay Austin competition.
In addition to her dramatic writing, she has studied fiction writing with Debra Jo Immergut (You Again) and in the Solstice MFA program at Lasell University, where she was awarded the Dennis Lehane Fiction Fellowship. She has written over fifty theater, film, dance, and puppetry resource guides for BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) and Lincoln Center Theater.
Nicole has been the recipient of artist and writing residencies at the Marble House Project, The Center for Literary Arts, and the Stowe Story Labs Fall Narrative Lab, and has been a finalist for the prestigious Kleban Prize for lyric writing.