4 minute read
NICK ABEEL
Nick Abeel (’01) never had a doubt where he would end up living.
He knew it was going to be New York City. The puzzle really was
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how he would put the pieces of a career together.
The Indiana-raised actor is now active in theater, film, and as a writer, plus doing voiceover work. He has been performing for
more than 25 years, dating back to his start as a professional actor
while juggling his studies at Sycamore.
“It was just a matter of when I would move to New York City,”
Abeel says of his leaving the Hoosier state. “I mean, there’ve
been times where it has been a hard place to live and you feel
like nobody really cares that you’re here, but I have never really
seriously considered moving or doing anything else.”
As a performer, Nick has been on stage at the Kennedy Center.
He’s developed new work in NYC at dozens of venues, like the
Manhattan Theatre Club, New Dramatists, NY Stage and Film,
and Slant Theatre Project. With much of his art, there are healthy
doses of humor and wit. He is a founding member of Recent
Cutbacks, a team that creates what Nick calls “joyful parodies
of blockbuster films and television.” He isn’t afraid of work. He tackles projects that are unique. And he gives lots of credit to
Sycamore for his ability to push through the work to find the magic.
Abeel grew up in Indianapolis. He first went to a Montessori program in the Indianapolis public school system through 4th
grade. But he wasn’t in a place that was right for him.
“I was always working a year ahead, and at the end of 4th grade,
we had a kind of a crossroads of what are we going to do the
next year,” he says. “We started shopping around for schools and
Sycamore seemed like a great fit for my needs,” as he would be transitioning to a new school for middle school. “All of a sudden I
was in school with kids who were very similar.” 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 Theater.” Nick got his start at IRT playing Dill in To Kill a
Mockingbird. He performed extensively in Indianapolis doing
theatre, film, and commercials. It made being at the right school more, not less, important to Abeel.
“I had to really hit the ground sprinting because I was in school and
the work was very challenging. At Sycamore, we were doing our
projects and doing performances in class, and reading Shakespeare,
and I don’t feel like Sycamore made much distinction between
creative and academic,” he says. “I feel like I have taken a lot of the
things that I learned in Middle School and directly applied to the
types of things that I’m doing now,” he says, citing a recent example.
“I have started to write an original work - a 60,000 word goofy, fake
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
and the vocabulary that I got from Word Within a Word.”
The Sycamore graduate, who attended Broad Ripple High School
and then the University of Evansville, had one of his earliest NYC
successes with his string of co-creating parodies of popular films, beginning with “Hold On To Your Butts,” a live, two-man and
a foley (sound effects) artist, “shot for shot” parody of the movie
“Jurassic Park.” TimeOut NY named it one of the Top 10 Comedy
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 “KEVIN!!!!!” a live “shot for shot” parody of “Home Alone”
featuring puppets, projections, and a four-person choir.
While he lives in New York, his image and his work in his younger,
still-in-Indiana days, lives on. For a long time, he was the
spokesman for Rose Hulman’s Homework Hotline and he is still
in the film they show to children before going through a surgery at Riley’s Children’s Hospital. Since moving, he has helped develop
new work with some of the top theaters in New York, performed
regionally, shot many student films, and learned to play the piano to boot. He is even in a performing company called Broken
Box Mime Theater, a collaborative ensemble creating original
contemporary short stories entirely through movement. “Mime,”
he writes on his website. “Yes, mime. We’re bringin’ it back.”
Abeel has created an acting and writing resume that is varied
and impressive. He is an Indiana guy who has embraced the
big city. And he remembers Sycamore School as a catalyst for
helping him follow his passion.
“I would tell Sycamore 8th graders to follow their passion and
follow their instincts,” he says. “My career looks very different than
I expected it to. My girlfriend has asked me ‘what do you think you
would have done if you had not done this?’ and I have no answer
for that. I feel like when I was in 8th grade, what I thought that an
acting career might look like and what I’m doing now is delightfully
very different. Be open to the possibility of possibilities.” n
