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Niko Tsakalakos is a composer-lyricist whose work straddles the worlds of rock/pop and musical theatre. Originally from New Brunswick, New Jersey, he first cut his teeth on the Los Angeles music scene as drummer and lead vocalist for the indie-rock band Saint Friday. Now based back on the East Coast, Niko devotes most of his creative life to writing musicals.

 

His apocalyptic climate-change musical comedy, Fall Springs, was featured in the 2017 NAMT Festival of New Musicals before making its world premiere on the mainstage at Barrington Stage Company in August 2019. His folk-rock musical Alexander Supertramp (working title), based on the true story of Christopher McCandless, has been produced at the Encore Musical Theatre in Michigan and developed by Playwrights Horizons, Goodspeed Musicals, Rhinebeck Writers Colony, Perseverance Theatre, and Berkeley Repertory Theater’s Ground Floor. His autobiographical pop-rock musical Pool Boy premiered at Barrington Stage Company and has had subsequent productions at the Provincetown Playhouse in NYC’s West Village and Pittsburgh CLO’s Spark Festival. He also composed the score for the play with songs Litter, which premiered at American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. His latest project, Hearts Beat Loud, a new musical based on the acclaimed film, had a workshop at MCC Theater in New York in February 2023.

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Niko has performed and hosted cabarets at renowned New York venues including Birdland, Joe’s Pub, Ars Nova, 54 Below, the Zipper Factory, and Lincoln Center. His work extends beyond the stage, from scoring the feature film Rock, Paper, Scissors: The Way of the Tosser (Alliance Films) to writing lyrics for video games. His songs appear in multiple anthologies, and he has been honored with numerous accolades including a Sundance Institute Composer Fellowship, the Johnny Mercer Writers Colony at Goodspeed, a Jonathan Larson Grant and  Kleban Prize in Musical Theatre Finalist citation, Ars Nova’s Uncharted Series and AntFest, the ASCAP Plus Award, Vineyard Arts Project residency, NAMT Writers Grant, Playwrights Center Writing Grant, and the Barry Manilow Award for Writing Lyrics that Succeed and Endure.

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Niko holds an MFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where he studied under two-time Tony Award winner William Finn.