Nikki MacCallum’s “Dry Run” Is An Addictive Read About Addiction
By Matt Levy
In 2019, author, playwright, comedienne and actress Nikki MacCallum’s father tragically passed away. MacCallum was especially close to her fun loving father, who let Nikki dress him in drag on Halloween and free her pet bunnies loose in the house. That said, they shared a complicated relationship as well. He struggled with alcohol addiction for many years which became the subject and inspiration for Nikki’s harrowing and hilarious 2019 memoir Dry Run. The book is about their complicated yet joy-filled relationship and how a 32 time marathoner became a recovering alcoholic.
Written in first person, Dry Run tells the tale of how Nikki ran her first marathon as a “Hail Mary Pass” to her father after he suffered a near death relapse. Dry Run has 26.2 chapters (the length of a marathon), each representing a mile of a marathon, and compares the challenges of running with the struggles of growing up as an only child with an alcoholic parent.
It took the hardworking MacCallum eight years to write this warmly funny and deeply moving story and with life being funny the way it is, the final manuscript was due the week her father passed. He quipped, “I’m a little offended my handsome punim (he was not Jewish but her mother is) isn’t on the cover.” Going further back, when Dry Run was first signed by Auctus Publishers, Nikki went to her parents asking for their blessing. While it would’ve been a tough decision to turn down a book deal, she would’ve had a very hard time moving forward with it if her parents weren’t onboard. Her dad said, “If this book helps one person, then I’m all for it.”
To get to this major creative triumph in MacCallum’s life, you must understand that this is not Nikki’s first major swing to the fences in the creative arena. She’s been making strides in the arts for years and this starts not with her father but with her mother. She was Nikki’s piano teacher, so naturally the young MacCallum grew up loving musical theatre. Her mom always encouraged her daughter to be herself which, in 1997, meant singing a one-woman version of Mr. Cellophane for her 7th grade talent show- which was utterly embarrassing, did not make her any friends, but did get her a part in the school musical. However, Nikki still tried to quit piano because she just wanted to sing show tunes. Her mom had let Nikki quit soccer, gymnastics, and the Foreign Language club (which was “clearly a scam”), but refused to let her quit piano. She said, “One day you will thank me.” Sure enough, several of MacCallum’s acting gigs have been because of her piano chops.
Nikki, a Boston native and die-hard Boston sports fan for life (she’s “devastated over the loss of Tom Brady”) wound up going to NYU for musical theatre but got her degree in music so as a “backup option,” she could teach. After graduating, Nikki began auditioning for Broadway and wound up booking a national tour. She was offered her Equity card, but it was during the 2008 financial crisis which was not a great time to be a new member of the actors union with few legitimate credits to prop herself up.
MacCallum’s close friend Kelvin Moon Loh (now a four-time Broadway veteran) suggested that if she wasn’t getting opportunities, she should create her own. Loh said if she wrote and produced a one-woman cabaret (original dialogue, non-original songs) he would help write and direct.
At the time, Nikki was hopelessly single so she put together the internet dating cabaret Matchmaker Matchmaker I’m Willing To Settle! She had zero producing experience and therefore invited every contact in her rolodex and then some. She invited casting directors, agents and producers hoping someone would come give her the big break she thought she deserved. MacCallum blindly leafed through Playbills of shows running on Broadway and invited their producers. Lo and behold, by some stroke of luck, one Broadway producer randomly showed up to The Duplex and gave her feedback.
The producer said she wouldn’t produce it. However, she did say that if MacCallum wrote Matchmaker into an original musical with an original score she thought it might have legs. After meeting with several composers and lyricists, Kelvin and Nikki found Brandon James Gwinn (of Trixie Mattel fame) the three scrappy, young artists adapted the cabaret into an original musical. In 2011 it was picked up, premiered at the A.R.T. ‘s second stage theatre OBERON in Boston (produced by Jared Fine, directed by Allegra Libonati, music directed by Joel Waggoner) and went on to have four other productions, two of which were off-broadway (NYMF, Ars Nova, Merry-Go-Round Theatre’s PiTCH Series, NYU). Nikki played herself in three of those productions.
Still, when she was triumphing with Matchmaker, MacCallum had many hang ups around starring in her own work. She had this complex that people would think she was unskilled and the only reason she was cast is because she was the casting director. She was also very insecure about her ability to play Nikki MacCallum. In fact, she vividly remembers crying to her therapist telling her, “I suck I’m not even talented enough to play myself and everyone knows it.” She proved that wrong to herself employing the maxim, “The truth is always the best answer, and the truth is always the funniest.” MacCallum sucked it up and soon had zero problems putting her most intimate and vulnerable thoughts out there if it made someone else feel less alone just like her father said about her book.
Even with all the insecurity that clouded her first major success, Nikki had gotten herself hooked on writing and creating her own work. She did go back to auditioning for theatre, but after having a taste of writing her own material, she found the auditioning aspect of theatre to be extremely unsatisfying. While Broadway is a dream she’ll never let go of, she found she was spending 90% of her time trying to be something someone else was looking for, striving to find the perfect 16 bars where her vocals would sound just like the person who’d played the role before. Then, for true freedom of expression, she transitioned to stand up comedy (some notable standouts from Nikki’s blossoming stand up career are her popular monthly show “You’re So Brave” with Sarah Cooper and the podcast “Why So Serious? A Guide To Killing It At Work” she co-hosts with Nicole Wells). Before the pandemic she could be seen regularly at The Grisly Pear and was a competitor in the 2020 Comedy Madness Competition at Caroline’s on Broadway. Nikki credits her long time Artistic Coach, otherwise known as a dream pusher, Tessa Faye Mosier, for a lot of her success and unusual career path as Tessa has always encouraged her to pave her own way.
Another creative MacCallum cherishes is her boyfriend whom she met on Bumble (Keep the faith ladies). At the time, not totally stoked about dating, she saw the guy’s profile on Bumble and her thought process was “Well, he’s shirtless, playing a sax, and went to school in Boston. Can’t be that bad.” Incidentally, her toilet broke that day (the first time her toilet ever broke in 16 years of living in NYC) and she didn’t have a plunger. She bought one that day. Due to time constraints, she didn’t have time to bring it home so she walked into a wine bar for their first date holding the plunger. Little did she know, the shirtless sax man was also a hilarious comic, extremely talented hip hop improviser, video producer and a handy plumber. They’re still together to this day.
We’ve made it to the finish line of Dry Run. This is Nikki’s story from musical theatre to NYU to Matchmaker to stand up to her book launch party which was produced by long-time friend and collaborator Kevin Martinez. Dry Run was a culmination of so many things she’d worked for and so many loved ones were involved. And, ironically enough, Dry Run started as a monologue she wrote for an acting class at MCS Studios. Impressively, Broadway actress Donna McKechnie (one of Nikki’s childhood idols) said of her, “I had always admired Nikki’s talents as a singer. Now, having found her voice as a writer, she is indeed Ms. Unstoppable!”
Since the book release, Nikki is still riding high attempting to sell her book (which was featured on CBS), and working towards the audiobook of A Dry Run with plans to adapt it for live theatre. She’s doing all of this from Greenpoint, Brooklyn where she moved to right before the global pandemic. Her new place has a giant bathtub which is critical to her well being and also where she prefers to eat dinner.
If you want to go for an ultra-marathon, follow Nikki on Instagram or check out her website.
Finally, one last Nikki nugget about her mom:
She once told Nikki she was volunteering at an all-Spanish speaking homeless shelter for women teaching music. For the record, Nikki’s never heard her mom habla Espanol.
She said her students were having a hard time picking up the song she taught that day. Turns out it was “John Jacob Jinglheimerschmidt.” Classic.
