ACTOR BIO
Donna Anita Nikolaisen is an Irish actor and voice over artist. She trained at Montfort School of Performing Arts, Bel Canto School of Voice and The Focus Theatre. Her stage credits include the lead role of ‘Judith Noone’ in the 2024 Irish premiere of Jaki McCarrick’s award-winning play Belfast Girls. Other roles of note include ‘Silk Campbell’ in No Irish No Blacks No Dogs, ‘Rima’ in Talking to Terrorists, ‘Bertha Mason’ in Jane Eyre at The Gate and one of ‘The Bacchae’ in The Bacchae of Baghdad at The Abbey. Donna’s recent TV credits include ‘Lucy’ in RTE’s The South Westerlies, ‘Francis Frond’ in cBBC’s Nova Jones and roles in Conversations with Friends, Blood and Kin. Her breakthrough TV role came as Zambian nurse ‘Ama Chisenga’, whom she played for five years on RTE’s Fair City. Donna’s film credits include the role of ‘Grace Ture’ in Sweetness in the Belly, ‘Paige Monaghan’ in Hallmark’s Christmas at Castle Hart and ‘Ali’ in award-winning short QED, where she won Best Supporting Actor at the Dublin Underground Cinema Festival 2018. She is represented by Byron’s Management.
BACKGROUND
Born in Dublin, Donna is of Irish Caribbean heritage. Brought up in Cork from the age of three by her adopted parents, Anita and Kurt Nikolaisen, she comes from a wonderfully diverse family. From an early age the stage called to her. Her debut performance was a showcase for The Montfort School of Performing Arts at the famous Cork Cat Club. After graduating from UCC with a BSc Business Information Systems, she moved to Dublin and worked in the IT sector, which lead her to set up Visual Aspects Web Design Studio. Around that time she also began training her voice at Bel Canto School of Voice and attending The Focus Theatre Stanislavsky Studio. Early roles include Bloody Mary in The Pioneer Society’s South Pacific at The Helix and Margaret in Much Ado About Nothing with The Dublin Shakespeare Society at Theatre@36. From this springboard she began booking roles in Theatre, TV, Film. She has a love for lyrics and melody and has recorded two albums to date called ‘Lore Bealtaine’ and ‘Samhain Song’, which can be found on her music page.
Acting Training
Acting for Camera, Film Venture
Stanislavsky Studio, The Focus Theatre, Tim McDonnell
LAMDA Speech & Drama, Montfort College of Performing Arts
Chekhov, Rayla Tadjimotova
Grotowski, Jason Byrne
Viewpoints, Joe Devlin
Voice
Bel Canto Voice, Bel Canto School of Voice
Music Theatre and Classical Voice, Waltons School of Music
Voice, Andy Hinds
Dance
Contemporary Dance, CoisCéim Dance Theatre
Jazz Ballet, Elena Degtyareva
Hip Hop, Jane Shorthall
Skills and Qualifications
Recording Artist (See music)
Owner of Visual Aspects Web Design Studio
BSc Business Information Systems (Hon), UCC
Full Drivers License