Nikkole Salter

Nikkole Salter is an American actress, playwright, and advocate whose work spans Broadway, Off-Broadway, regional theater, and international stages. Born in Los Angeles, Salter began acting around age eight and discovered her aptitude for writing while composing a monologue for an acting class. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in theater from Howard University before completing a Master of Fine Arts at New York University's Graduate Acting Program.

While enrolled as a third-year student in NYU's Graduate Acting Program, Salter co-wrote In the Continuum with fellow student Danai Gurira in February 2004 through the university's FREEPLAY program. The play examines the parallel experiences of an African woman and an African American woman both diagnosed with HIV/AIDS, and was created in response to the disproportionately high rate of new HIV infections among Black women in both the United States and Africa. The original production featured only two actors and a minimal set of two chairs. After being workshopped at the Mud/Bone Theater Collective and the Ojai Playwright's Festival in 2004, the play premiered at Primary Stages in New York City on September 11, 2005, directed by Robert O'Hara, with Salter and Gurira as the original cast. The production transferred to the Off-Broadway Perry Street Theatre in November 2005 and subsequently toured nationally to venues including Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Center Theatre Group, Yale Repertory, and Goodman Theatre, as well as internationally to Zimbabwe, South Africa, Scotland, and additional South African festivals.

In the Continuum earned Salter and Gurira an Obie Award, the New York Outer Critics Circle's John Gassner Award for Best New American Play, the Seldes-Kanin Fellowship from the Theatre Hall of Fame, and the Friends of the United Nations' Global Tolerance Award. The New York Times, Newsday, and New York Magazine each named it among the best plays of 2005. For her performance as Nia, Salter received Best Actress nominations from both the Helen Hayes Awards and the Black Theatre Alliance Awards. The play also received a Pulitzer Prize nomination.

Salter's playwriting output includes seven full-length works that have been produced Off-Broadway and in five countries. Her play Carnaval, which centers on three African American men who travel to Brazil for sex tourism and examines their motivations, was inspired by an article Salter encountered in Essence Magazine. Its premiere production, directed by Cheryl Katz, ran at Luna Stage from January 31 to March 17, 2013. The play was subsequently remounted in New York City at Dr. Barbara Ann Teer's National Black Theatre, running from October 21 to November 16, 2014, under the direction of Awoye Timpo. Salter received an AUDELCO Award nomination for Best Playwright for the work. She has also written shorter theatrical pieces as part of advocacy-oriented collections, including Unknown Thousands for the Every 28 Hours Plays project, and Peace Officer Privilege and Mahagony Corpo for UNTAMED: Hair, Body, Attitude. In 2014, she was awarded a MAP Fund Grant and was a finalist for the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center National Playwrights Conference, as well as a nominee for both the USA Fellowship and the Playwrights of New York Fellowship.

On Broadway, Salter appeared in The Great Society in 2019. Her stage work beyond Broadway includes performances at Arena Stage, Huntington Theater, Berkeley Repertory Theater, and the Shakespeare Theater Company.

Following the success of In the Continuum, Salter co-founded the Continuum Project with playwright Glenn Gordon Nsangou. The organization provides cultural programming for the empowerment and enrichment of the global African Diaspora. In 2009, the Continuum Project launched its first initiative, The Legacy Program: Residency, developed in partnership with African Ancestry and Piper Theatre Production, which places theater teachers in public schools in Brooklyn, New York. A second initiative, The Legacy Program: Reflection, launched in 2010 and commissions original plays from teachers participating in the Residency program, encouraging them to draw on their experiences with the students they serve.

Salter also holds leadership roles within the broader theater community. She serves on the Board of Directors for the Theatre Communications Group and on the Council of the Dramatists Guild of America, both organizations dedicated to supporting and advancing the interests of theater professionals and writers for the stage.