Nikki DiLoreto (‘12), a theater director and creative producer, was inspired to take up coaching and mentorship after receiving her master’s in 2023. Photos by Stella Kalinina

Theatre

Directing Change

Nikki DiLoreto is a director, coach, mentor, and cofounder of an inclusive program for female and nonbinary directors

“Opening night is this wonderful, magical, theater-specific tradition, where you just want to tell everybody how much you loved working with them—you write opening night cards and you give gifts. It feels like the last day of summer camp,” she says. “In adult life, there’s nowhere else that happens. It’s really one of the most sacred traditions that keeps us going in this field.”

The tradition also conjures the joy DiLoreto experienced as a child in Lexington, Ky., where she was an actor and a stage manager in school plays.

“It was the only thing I ever really wanted to do, the thing I was the most committed to,” she says. “I think a lot of people have this first show they ever saw that drew them into it. But for me, I fell in love with the craft of it and making it. It was the most fun thing.” Today, DiLoreto, a director and creative producer whose credits include associate director of the West End hit SIX: The Musical, has made it a goal to spread the joy and camaraderie of theater and build an artistic community.

“I want to be a part of providing opportunity and resources to emerging artists,” says DiLoreto, who has cofounded an LA-based inclusive directors program for women and nonbinary theater professionals. “Growing up in Kentucky and not having a ton of access to theater or to resources to build a career, I started to get really invested in supporting the storytellers of the next generation. More than ever, that’s going to be so important.”

THE ROAD TO DIRECTING

DiLoreto chose to study stage management at CFA, but says she was soon nudged in another direction: “All of the directors that I worked with as a stage manager were like, ‘You’re not a stage manager.’ I’d be giving them notes for the actors.”

She stuck with it, but planned to pursue directing after graduation.

She says her time at CFA and the professional theater experience she had as a student—including an internship at the Huntington Theatre— prepared her to create her own opportunities.

“I really knew how shows were produced,” DiLoreto says. “I knew all these designers because I was in the design and production program, and my friends were actors and writers.” She started producing and directing their work.

Shortly after graduating from BU, she also began working for the Roundabout Theatre Company in New York, first as an apprentice in the artistic department and later as an assistant director on some of its shows, including Kiss Me, Kate, On the Exhale, and Too Much, Too Much, Too Many, and other Broadway productions.

DiLoreto says her directing style depends on the show. With a new play, the script often isn’t finished. “That means, in terms of casting, maybe you want people who are more familiar with new work, who can be more flexible,” she says. “You also work really closely with designers to build the world. You’re sort of experimenting all along the way.”

But no matter the show, DiLoreto says, she takes a collaborative approach. “For me, the best idea in the room wins,” she says. “And I’m always going to cast people who I feel like, yes, they’re right for the role, but also they’re really excited to collaborate and want to bring good energy into the room.”

One of her favorite projects was the 2019 West End run of SIX: The Musical, which won a 2022 Tony Award for Best Original Score. DiLoreto was an associate director on the show, a modern, pop concert–style retelling of the lives of Henry VIII’s six wives.

“The nature of the show is, you have to cast talented people, but no one person can be more famous than the other,” she says. “They’re not super well known, not stars, but then in four weeks you have to turn them into Beyoncé.”

Part of her job was empowering the actresses playing the six wives to become a girl band of sorts. “It’s a transformational process for the actors involved,” she says. “These performers need a space where they can learn a really, really hard show, execute it at a high level in a short amount of time, and feel like they’re superstars. I think creating that atmosphere and supporting those performers through that journey has been some of the most rewarding directing I’ve done.”

COACHING AND MENTORSHIP

In 2023, DiLoreto received a master’s degree from the University of Southern California. “Post-COVID, there were a lot of conversations around the resiliency of arts organizations and I wanted to be a part of that conversation,” she says. “How can the arts continue to thrive, and what shape is that going to take?”

During the program, she got a taste for coaching and mentorship, particularly during a class she was taking with MBA students that involved making presentations in front of a group.

“I found myself giving them notes and helping them prepare by doing some vocal exercises and asking questions,” she says. “Who’s our audience? What are the stakes for this moment? What’s the story we’re trying to tell? And it really helped. It made me realize my background in the arts and my career is really useful outside of the theater world.”

Now, she’s using those skills as a freelance performance coach for companies and executives through the communication coaching company Strictly Speaking Group, which was cofounded by Alex Schneps (CGS’10, COM’12, CFA’19).

“Other industries don’t necessarily focus on communication, even though that’s one of the most important parts of life,” says DiLoreto. “We work with big tech executives and all different kinds of businesses, and a lot of our work is really grounded in theater performance.”

Her grad school experience sparked another idea. She remembers getting an assignment to create a program that drew on the leadership skills she was learning. She wanted to build a community—and to hang out with other directors.

DiLoreto joined forces with her friend, collaborator, and mentor Jessica Hanna to establish a program for LA-area women and nonbinary directors to see theater by other women and nonbinary directors. The program had its first gathering in April 2023; since then, the program has taken off. The groups of directors, ranging from 5 to 10, have seen productions all around Los Angeles, from The Hollywood Fringe to the Center Theatre Group.

The idea is to get the message out about the breadth of talented directors in LA. “It’s showing there are tons of people to hire, and if you program female and nonbinary directors, people will come,” DiLoreto says. “We will come. We will support them, and we will buy tickets.”

The group has created opportunities for cross-generational mentorship, as participants are at every stage of their career: “We have people who just moved to LA or who just got out of grad school, people who have been in Los Angeles and in the business for more than 20 years.”

DiLoreto says theater companies now reach out to her and Hanna, offering discount codes to the group. They envision adding meetings to discuss the shows they’ve seen recently and the craft.

“I think that there is a need for this kind of in-person community-building to be happening, not just in LA, not just in New York, but everywhere,” she says. “Something I was really stuck on initially was, I don’t have a grant or funding, so I can’t accomplish everything I want this program to be. But that’s still in the future. We’re doing the work that we can do right now. You have to start somewhere.”