Maria Nicolacakis is a SAG-AFTRA actor, writer, and educator with over twenty five years of experience in the arts. She has worked with diverse populations, from at-risk teens in the city, to visual and performing arts college students at USC, CalArts, and Emerson College.
Maria’s notable performance experience includes playing opposite Frances Fisher, Mimi Rogers, Melina Kanakaredes, and Jean Smart as the Azerbaijani mother in My Child: Mothers of War in LA, garnering Stage Raw’s “Pick of the Week.” Her solo show, Sacrament, has been featured on multiple Hollywood stages as part of 15 Minutes of Fem, Expressing Motherhood, and Go Solo! As a voiceover artist, you may have heard her blood curdling screams, multiple dialects, or cop talk on various t.v. shows and films including on CSI: New York – a feat she sustained nine seasons thanks to vocal techniques learned directly from the late, great, Kristin Linklater.
Nicolacakis is a founding Ensemble Member of the critically acclaimed Syzygy Theatre Group, the first 99-seat theater company in Los Angeles to provide full Actor’s Equity contracts for all mainstage productions. She choreographed Syzygy’s production of Love’s Old Sweet Song, which received a “Go!” from The LA Weekly, a “Wow” (Recommended) by Stage Scene LA, and the “Critic’s Pick” from The LA Times. No stranger to CalArts, Nicolacakis performed in the inaugural production of CalArts Center for New Performance’s (CNP) King Lear, both in LA and in France. She dedicated over a decade of service to the CalArts Alumni Association’s Executive Board of Directors where she co-curated the REDCAT CNP opening performances and served on multiple committees including Student Relations, Benefits, By-Laws, 30th Anniversary, and Artists Integrating Motherhood (AIM), which she co-founded.
Synthesizing performance practices with mentoring emerging artists and community building has been the cornerstone of Nicolacakis’ multifaceted career. She toured the US in two different ensembles devising original plays with local citizen-artists using Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed. To continue serving artists’ journeys, she founded Act One College Counseling, LLC., an educational consulting business specializing in visual and performing artists’ training pathways and career development. Nicolacakis has immense knowledge of the current trends in curricula and administration in higher education as evidenced by touring over 100 university campuses throughout the U.S., and her Professional Membership in the Independent Educational Consultants Association (IECA) and the National Association of College Admissions Consultants (NACAC).
A native midwesterner, Maria began her career in Chicago, where she performed in numerous plays, humored audiences at the ImprovOlympic, and toured nationally in over 25 shows in repertory. She is a former dancer, most notably as a guest ballerina with the New York City Ballet.
Nicolacakis holds an MFA in Acting from CalArts, a BFA in Acting magna cum laude from Emerson College, and a certification in college counseling with distinction from UCLA. She hails from a Big Fat Greek family in Ohio, and currently resides in LA with her husband, three kids, and favorite hiking companion, Dizzy-the-dog-Gillespie.
