Student Spotlight: Nick DiJulio on directing at the Auburn Area Community Theatre

6/23/2023

While Auburn University Theatre students are almost always busy with departmental performances, many of them still find time to pursue opportunities in the Auburn community and beyond. One of these ambitious students, Nick DiJulio, a junior BFA performance and visual media studies double major, recently had success as a student director for Auburn’s very own community theatre. Nick is active in the Department of Theatre and Dance and has been in seven AUTD season productions. You may remember him as John Brooke in “Little Women”, Jeremy/Lucas in “The Future is Here”, Doctor Rank in “A Doll’s House”, Swing in “Spring Awakening”, Narrator/Mysterious Man in “Into the Woods”, Jaxton in “Thanksgiving Play”, and Sir Toby Belch in “Twelfth Night.” We were so excited to talk to him about this opportunity and share the hard work and dedication of one of our Auburn students with you.

Nick grew up in Auburn, and he first got involved with the Auburn Area Community Theatre, or AACT, fourteen years ago when he started taking children’s acting classes. He found the AACT particularly welcoming after a short stint in sports. “I had been a youth soccer player, but finding out I had asthma took me in a less cardio-heavy direction,” he said. Nick went on to perform in seven productions with the community theatre before coming to Auburn University. This past March, he had the opportunity to direct the youth (middle and high school) production of “Holmes and Watson; the Game’s Afoot.”

Nick Dijulio standing with cast of the play Games Afoot

The show overall was around an eight month process, one that Nick said was “one of the most gratifying experiences to get to do…it allowed me to have the opportunity to actually design, plan and carry out a production process from paper to a fully realized production.” There are many meetings, rehearsals and technical elements that go into any kind of theatrical performance, but Nick said these all culminated in a show he was really proud of. He added that Auburn's Department of Theatre and Dance gave him many of the necessary tools he needed to direct, although he will only now be taking our directing seminar this upcoming fall semester. Of the beneficial tools he learned from our department, Nick said the most useful was “how to direct to anyone professionally, with empathy, and with passion and a concept about what you are doing that transcends the minutiae of day to day production challenges.” He also found that his training as an actor aided not only the more experienced actors who were ready for more technical elements, but also the less experienced actors, who were bolstered and stretched by acting games, character work and spontaneity throughout the process. Nick said his favorite thing about the process was watching the student actors grow, not only in their craft, but together as friends. He shared that the process drew everyone closer together, saying, “we all really became a team and family, and apart from the respect I have for everyone I worked with as an artist, I also take quite a lot of pride in being able to say that this group of high school students, and their parents, and volunteers are all personal friends to me and wonderful people I get to know.”

When asked what the future looks like for him, Nick shared that he would be honored to direct again, but isn’t necessarily sure he wants to pursue directing professionally. He does plan to continue utilizing his skills next year as he tries his hand at film directing through his visual media studies degree. Nick said the experience learned through directing will be invaluable for him as he continues on his artistic journey: “The skills of design, writing, teaching, and devising artistic concepts that I have learned through doing this will certainly follow me into acting, screenwriting, and production work that I intend to pursue.”

Finally, he added that this show in particular was very near to his heart. The production of the play was a testament to his love for Conan Doyle’s original novels on the exploits and adventures of Holmes and Watson, and watching it come alive through his own hard work was, “worth everything.” He says, “While I would beg anyone to read those books, the bigger takeaway for me is definitely that if you know there is a story that you want to have told and it’s not being told or it doesn’t exist, I hope everyone gets the chance to be as fortunate as I have been to go out and actually tell it for themselves.”

To say that the department is proud of Nick for his success on the production would be an understatement. We are so glad to have students who are not only talented, but also willing to boldly tell their own stories their own way. For more of our amazingly talented students, be sure to keep up with us on social media, and keep an eye out for information about this upcoming season!

Tags: Theatre and Dance