Nisha Madhan’s career spans acting, directing and producing for theatre and television. She trained as an actress at Unitec’s School of Performing and Screen Arts under the guidance of Murray Hutchinson from 2001 to 2003.
Since graduating she has toured the country with Alan Duff’s Charitable Foundation, Books in Homes and toured high schools in the Auckland area with King Lear directed by Margaret Mary Hollins for the Auckland Theatre Company. In 2006 she created the company Phundmi Productions and their first production Shakespeare Unbar’d:The Food of Love played to sell out audiences in 2006 and 2007. In 2009 she attended Philippe Gaulier’s private acting course in Paris where she also created the cult art collective Future Hotel with Stephen Bain. Future Hotel was commissioned by The Edge and Heart of The City to create a street theatre piece called Beckett Says in 2009 and again in 2011 with the public installation Soundig. Both performances have been bought by The Awesome Festival in Perth (2012).
In February 2011 she created, performed in and produced the latest Future Hotel creation ‘What Have You Done To Me?’ for the Auckland Fringe Festival at The Basement Theatre and “Show Pony” – an experimental comedic collaboration with critically acclaimed performance artist Alexa Wilson, commissioned by The Edge for the New Performance Festival in 2012. Her direction of Cowboy Mouth by Sam Shepard and Patti Smith was a critically acclaimed success and led her to winning the Q Theatre Best Newcomer Theatre-Maker award. She was also comissioned to create IQ2 an original street theatre piece for Auckland’s Living Room Public Arts Festival.
