A Storytelling session at your child s birthday party (or other special event) of their favorite book or Torah portion. Storytelling is both dramatic and interactive and will bring your child s favorite book to life!

 Or

 A private coaching session in acting for your child.  Whether your child has aspirations for the art of acting and the stage or needs aid in articulation, speech and stage presence; your child will benefit from Nicole’s years of classical stage work and teaching.

Meet Nicole Raphael  

Nicole Raphael (AEA SAG) has acted professionally in NYC and regionally for over 10 years. She tours With Dream Awakened Eyes written by Ellen W. Kaplan; a solo performance piece based on German/Jewish painter, Charlotte Salomon and her autobiographical paintings.

Nicole was also seen on the National Yiddish Theatre/Folksbiene stage as the Rabbi’s Daughter  in Gimpel Tam (Gimpel the Fool), based upon the short story by Isaac Bashevis Singer. Other theatre credits  include Abby in Red Haired Thomas (The Ohio Theater); The Green Girl in Glyn Maxwell’s Wolfpit (Phoenix Theatre Ensemble); Nechumele in Carcass (New World Theatre Project); Susan Jamison in Bonnie Culver s award winning, Sniper (Center Stage); 13 yr. old Polish immigrant, Kasia in A Taste of Freedom (Ellis Island); Julie and Geraldine in the British farces, Perfect Wedding and What the Butler Saw; (Shadowland Theatre); the title role in The Diary of Anne Frank (Meadow Brook Theatre, New American Theater, Penobscot Theatre); the title role in Romeo; Alice  in You Can't Take It With You (Arkansas Rep); Julia  in Zastrozzi (Circle in the Square Downtown) and the title role in the tour of Oliver Twist (Theatreworks/USA). She also performed the full audio book narrations for Scholastic’s Dear America: Voyage on the Great Titanic, The Diary of Margaret Ann Brady and Yvonne David’s Out of the Apple Orchard. She can also be heard in The Jewish American Museum’s immigration audio tour. 

As the founder and artistic director of the The Mesaper Theatre, she strives to produce the simchas  and struggles of the Jewish experience on stage.  Under its auspices, she has led Jewish themed theatre workshops, classes and readings at Manhattan Day School (MDS), Ramaz Lower School, The Heschel School in NYC. She led the workshop, Anne Frank in Performance at Manhattan Day School (MDS) which culminated in a play performed by the 8th grade girls.  She performed her playlet, The Story of Esther or the reluctant beauty contestant at MDS and Beyond the Bulrushes: Miriam tells it like it was at both MDS and Young Israel in New Rochelle.  She also spearheaded a theatre club for students at Ramaz Lower School, which culminated in A Shabbat Play.   She brought a reading of the Chanukah play, A Great Big Miracle by Ben Winters to The Heschel School and produced annual concert readings of Out of the Apple Orchard by Ellen W. Kaplan, based upon the book by Yvonne David.

She received her BA from Smith College, her MFA from The Actor’s Studio and graduated from the prestigious New World School of the Arts in Miami, Fl. She was an Artist’s Fellow at The Drisha Institute for Jewish Studies and also takes beginning Yiddish Classes at The Workman’s Circle.

She is a proud member of the Actor’s Equity Association (AEA) and Screen Actors Guild.

Nicole is happiest when she combines her love and craft of acting with her commitment to her Jewish Heritage, whether she is performing in commercial theatre or dramatically telling her private students a story from our weekly parsha.