Nicholas Piper is Associate Artistic Director of Barter Theatre in charge of New Play Development and the director of the Appalachian Festival of Plays and Playwrights. Over the last 15 years he has helped develop dozens of new plays including audience favorites Madame Buttermilk, Keep on the Sunny Side, and this season’s Winter Wheat and We’ll Meet Again. Also a member of Barter’s Resident Acting Company, recent favorite roles include: Georges (La Cage Aux Folles), Jack (Maytag Virgin), Crumpet (Santaland Diaries), Guy Friendly (Friendly’s Fire), Rev. Shaw Moore (Footloose), Harry Bright (Mama Mia) Edward Bloom (Big Fish), Stanley Kowalski (A Streetcar Named Desire) A graduate of the University of Tennessee, he began his career at Barter as an intern before becoming a founding member of Barter’s First Light Theatre (now The Barter Players).  He has also directed a number of shows at Barter including: Church Basement Ladies, Leaving Iowa, Winter Wheat, The Dixie Swim Club, Over the River and Through The Woods, Keep on the Sunny Side, A Facility For Living, The Glass Menagerie, Unnecessary Farce, Elvis Has Left the Building, Showtime at First Baptist, I’ll Never Be Hungry Again, and Lying in State. He is so very grateful to be a member of this community along with his wife Wendy and their two beautiful daughters Lucy and Maggie.