One to Watch – Nicola Salvage

When Nicola was told that her College Course in the Performing Arts at Lewes Sussex Downs had been cancelled, she accepted it philosophically. The college suggested that she could do the course in Production Arts instead and it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to her. Two years later, Nicola has won a place at London’s Mountview Academy where she will join one of the most prestigious theatre production courses in the country.

Her achievement is all the greater since she is dyslexic and had to work exceptionally hard to achieve her excellent GCSE results. Her secondary school refused to accept that she had a disability meaning that she got no help, support or extra time for her exams.

But her tutors at Lewes Sussex Downs College saw and nurtured her talents. Over the last two years she and her class have worked exceptionally hard, having been involved in numerous theatrical productions as well as getting valuable experience backstage in music concerts all around the UK.

Some may have witnessed the Heritage lottery funded event know as The Battle of Lewes Experience. A cast of 100 and an audience of 500 took part in the sound and light show at Lewes Castle, April 2012, where the battle’s narrative was dramatically projected onto the Castle. Nicola played a key-role in helping to stage manage the interactive production where the audience themselves had to be stage managed. ‘It was a team effort’ she emphasised, though admits that she is a team player. Nicola was also key in publicising the event, designing the poster (pictured), organising the printing and production, posting the leaflets through letterboxes and sticking up posters round the town to ensure that as many people as possible knew about the event.

Click on the link below to see the excellent YouTube video that SP Projects and Projection Mapping made of the live  Battle of Lewes Experience event

Asked at what point she had realised that production, and not performance, was her vocation, ‘it was almost as soon as I started the course,’ she remembers. ‘It just seemed to come so easily compared with everything that had I had done before. For the first project we made masks for the Commedia De’Lewes project and the challenges just got more and more exciting.’ She moves up to town in a few days time – au revoir to Lewes and watch out London!