Nic Benacerraf (he/they) is a designer, facilitator, and performance scholar. This site showcases his theatrical designs, both as an artistic leader and as a collaborator. 

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Nic engineers consent-based systems and environments for genuine human encounters in theaters, classrooms, concert halls, and streets. He is the director and founding partner of Edge Effect, a polydicsciplinary "think-and-do-tank," following 15 years as a founding co-artistic director of The Assembly. (Favorite Assembly projects include SEAGULLMACHINE and HOME/SICK.)

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For over a decade Nic developed original techniques to build design in collaboration with performers and authors in the rehearsal environment. His award-winning work as a scenographer has brought him into collaboration with Trusty Sidekick (Up & Away at Lincoln Center), Soul Inscribed (CANNABIS: A Viper Vaudeville at La MaMa), Waterwell (GOODBAR at the Under the Radar Festival), The Living Theatre (Here We Are by Judith Malina), Baba Israel (WORD.SOUND.POWER. at BAM), Meiyin Wang (so go the ghosts of méxico La MaMa), Kristin Marting (IDIOT & Looking At You at HERE) and Goat in the Road (Foreign to Myself in New Orleans). He has assisted luminaries such as Richard Foreman and Mimi Lien (and co-created a website in her honor). 

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Currently, Nic teaches in the MFA Directing program at Brown University / Trinity Rep. Before that, he was on faculty at Brooklyn College, CalArts, and Kean University, and has lectured or conducted workshops at Sarah Lawrence College, Wesleyan University, Hamilton College, Colgate University, The New School, Hunter College, etc., and at Richard Schechner’s courses at NYU.

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Nic likes classrooms. He is a proud graduate of Wesleyan University (BA in Theater and Sociology) and CalArts (MFA in Scenic Design; MA in Aesthetics & Politics). ​Currently, he is finishing a Ph.D. in Theatre and Performance at the CUNY Graduate Center, where his research exposes Public Relations as a form of capitalist persuasion, which covertly uses theatrical techniques to manipulate our social perceptions of reality.​​​