ALUMNI
NICK ABEEL
Though he was in a new school, he was also starting to find his acting career taking off, even at a young age. “I missed a lot of the first semester because I was acting at the Indiana Repertory
Nick Abeel (’01) never had a doubt where he would end up living.
Theater.” Nick got his start at IRT playing Dill in To Kill a
He knew it was going to be New York City. The puzzle really was
Mockingbird. He performed extensively in Indianapolis doing
how he would put the pieces of a career together.
theatre, film, and commercials. It made being at the right school more, not less, important to Abeel.
The Indiana-raised actor is now active in theater, film, and as a writer, plus doing voiceover work. He has been performing for
“I had to really hit the ground sprinting because I was in school and
more than 25 years, dating back to his start as a professional actor
the work was very challenging. At Sycamore, we were doing our
while juggling his studies at Sycamore.
projects and doing performances in class, and reading Shakespeare, and I don’t feel like Sycamore made much distinction between
“It was just a matter of when I would move to New York City,”
creative and academic,” he says. “I feel like I have taken a lot of the
Abeel says of his leaving the Hoosier state. “I mean, there’ve
things that I learned in Middle School and directly applied to the
been times where it has been a hard place to live and you feel
types of things that I’m doing now,” he says, citing a recent example.
like nobody really cares that you’re here, but I have never really
“I have started to write an original work - a 60,000 word goofy, fake
seriously considered moving or doing anything else.”
lecture series I don’t think I would have been able to even know where to start on a project like that if it weren’t for the work ethic
As a performer, Nick has been on stage at the Kennedy Center.
and the vocabulary that I got from Word Within a Word.”
He’s developed new work in NYC at dozens of venues, like the Manhattan Theatre Club, New Dramatists, NY Stage and Film,
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and Slant Theatre Project. With much of his art, there are healthy doses of humor and wit. He is a founding member of Recent
The Sycamore graduate, who attended Broad Ripple High School
Cutbacks, a team that creates what Nick calls “joyful parodies
and then the University of Evansville, had one of his earliest NYC
of blockbuster films and television.” He isn’t afraid of work. He
successes with his string of co-creating parodies of popular films,
tackles projects that are unique. And he gives lots of credit to
beginning with “Hold On To Your Butts,” a live, two-man and
Sycamore for his ability to push through the work to find the magic.
a foley (sound effects) artist, “shot for shot” parody of the movie “Jurassic Park.” TimeOut NY named it one of the Top 10 Comedy
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shows of 2014. The same team next created “Fly, You Fools,” a parody of the first “Lord of the Rings” movie, and in 2016, created
Abeel grew up in Indianapolis. He first went to a Montessori
“KEVIN!!!!!” a live “shot for shot” parody of “Home Alone”
program in the Indianapolis public school system through 4th
featuring puppets, projections, and a four-person choir.
grade. But he wasn’t in a place that was right for him. While he lives in New York, his image and his work in his younger, “I was always working a year ahead, and at the end of 4th grade,
still-in-Indiana days, lives on. For a long time, he was the
we had a kind of a crossroads of what are we going to do the
spokesman for Rose Hulman’s Homework Hotline and he is still
next year,” he says. “We started shopping around for schools and
in the film they show to children before going through a surgery at
Sycamore seemed like a great fit for my needs,” as he would be
Riley’s Children’s Hospital. Since moving, he has helped develop
transitioning to a new school for middle school. “All of a sudden I
new work with some of the top theaters in New York, performed
was in school with kids who were very similar.”
regionally, shot many student films, and learned to play the piano to boot. He is even in a performing company called Broken
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