The Director -            

Nicholas Leahy 

A recent Mercury article featured the upcoming production of Noel Coward’s play Blithe Spirit at the Playhouse.  The Director of this production is Nick Lahey.

Nick is an enthusiastic educator and keen Theatre Director. When Nick was a young SVC student, Drama was not yet part of the secondary curriculum at Austins Ferry. Nick, therefore, set about rectifying this with the campus director at the time, to ensure Drama was firmly embedded into the curriculum and College culture. 

As a student, Nick trained under Robyn Roylance studying AMEB (Drama) and performed regularly with Mummers Theatre Company. Inspired by his theatre experiences as a young person, he followed his passion to study at the University of Tasmania. Torn between following a pathway to be either a performing artist or a Drama educator, he chose the Bachelor of Education with a specialisation in Drama and English and later, professional honours in Leadership. 

Nick spent much of his early career in education as a Drama teacher, teaching in England, Sydney and Hobart. Nick progressed his career by becoming the Head of Performing and Visual Arts at MacKillop College, before following his educational leadership pathway in being appointed as MacKillop’s first Director of Student Wellbeing after many years of being a Year Level Coordinator. Nick is now in his sixth year as Deputy Principal at Sacred Heart College, New Town. 

Nick’s performance as a high quality educator has been well recognised.  In 2002 he received a National Excellence in Teaching Award and in 2017 was the recipient of Australian Council for Educational Leadership (ACEL) for Excellence in Educational Leadership.

Ten years ago, Nick also enjoyed a career break by re-qualifying with a commercial Kitchen Operations certificate to become a small business owner and operator of the former Kaos Café in North Hobart that he morphed into Marmalade Café & Catering.

After resuming his career in education, Nick was the Co-President of the statewide Drama Tasmania Teachers Association, representing Tasmanian Drama teachers, providing professional learning opportunities for drama practitioners as well as advising on state and national educational curriculum documentation and hosting state conferences. During this time, he was also a member of the Theatre Royal's Educational Advisory Committee. 

Having thoroughly enjoyed directing young people for many years as a high school drama teacher, he is now enjoying the opportunity to be able to focus on working with talented adults and therefore, more adult material. Directing David Williamson’s Up For Grabs for example for Hobart Rep. was a great exploration of the seedy, greedy and ruthless art-dealing world. Calendar Girls in contrast, embraced the themes of friendship, determination and courage to bare all; or nearly all! 

Nick is currently fully immersed in staging Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit at The Playhouse Theatre and thoroughly enjoying interpreting the clever, witty script and working with such a talented cast and crew. 

Blithe Spirit opens at The Playhouse Theatre on October 8 and closes on February 23.