About Nick

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NICK CHOO is a Malaysian composer, musician and playwright whose original works of musical theatre have been produced in Kuala Lumpur, Australia, South Korea and Singapore. He has been actively composing and performing in Malaysia since 2008, with

music for the Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre (KLPAC)’s production of A Christmas Carol and a workshop performance of his original musical The Edge that year.

His more recent works include the BOH Cameronian Arts Awards-nominated children’s musical Zak Zebra’s African Safari, which was produced in 2015 and subsequently toured to South Korea for the launch of the Asian Cultural Complex in September that year.

Nick is the composer and lyricist of the family musical Alice’s Wonderland, produced and

presented by Cempaka Performing Arts Company (CPAC) in May 2017, which led to Cempaka

Schools being recognised by the Malaysia Book of Records for being the first school to produce an original musical at the professional level. He also composed the subsequent CPAC musicals, Dames & Dimes (2019) and Spooks (TBD).

In 2013, Nick's original short musical Dreaming Outside The Box won eight out of 14 awards in the Short+Sweet Musical (Malaysia) arts festival, including Best Musical Director, Best Libretto, Best Composition, Best Overall Production and the Audience’s Choice award. In 2014, he received the inaugural Mercedes-Benz Malaysia Creative Excellence Award for his work in Short+Sweet Musical over the years.

Nick’s other award-winning short works include Little Girl Lost (Short+Sweet Musical 2010);

Cartography of a Relationship (2014); and Commencement, which made its world premiere in 4 in 50: A Mini Musical Marathon at the Perth Fringe World Festival in January 2017. These

musicals have subsequently been performed locally as the revue Lost/Found, produced by

Malaysian theatre company theatrethreesixty in 2019.

The premiere staging proper of his full-length musical The Edge won several BOH Cameronian Arts Awards in 2014, including for Best Original Script/Lyrics and Best Musical Direction, and made its Western Australian premiere in May 2018 with an all-Australian cast at The Blue Room Theatre in Perth. The Edge has been critically applauded for its role in highlighting mental health issues including depression and suicide. In December 2018, the show celebrated its 10th anniversary (since the 2008 workshop run) with a critically acclaimed season in Malaysia presented by theatrethreesixty.

Nick graduated from Australia with a Bachelor of Arts (Mass Communications and English) and a Master of Arts in Creative Industries, and has previously worked as a journalist, writer and editor.