Nia Williams

I’m a freelance musician and writer based in Oxford, UK.  Please use the menu to find out about my work, and drop me a line if you’d like to know more—follow the link to the Contact page.

WHAT’S NEW IN 2025

THREE CHAIRS & A HAT

🎬 The year kicked off with great news for the digital side of my theatre company, Three Chairs and a Hat, with semi-final places for animated musicals LADY M and PETER: Trouble in the GLASGOW FILM AWARDS, and another semi-final for PETER: Trouble, in the MELBOURNE INDEPENDENT FILM FESTIVAL. Fingers crossed for the finals! 

🎬 You can see both animations on the Three Chairs and a Hat YouTube channel or international digital platform Scenesaver. Work is well underway on Foundations, the next episode of PETER, in which the eccentric tsar finds new romance, makes new enemies and creates a whole new city.

🎭 We’re planning a brand new Three Chairs and a Hat stage musical, inspired by the true story of an enterprising 19th-century woman with a novel way of earning a living. Clue: it involved a lot of walking and a peashooter …

🎭 Plans are underway to record the songs from our musical MRS PACK, after receiving some lovely feedback from our 2024 Camden Fringe production (see below).

  

‘A gem of a show … this musical should have global audiences’ — Fringebiscuit ⭐️⭐️⭐️
‘A delightful piece of storytelling: well choreographed, intricately scored and charming’ — London Pub Theatre Review ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
‘Richly assembled and given both humour and poignancy’ — LouReviews ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
‘Tremendous … interesting, thoughtful, pacey, energetic, slick, funny, great harmonies!’
‘Outstanding performances across the board. Captivating story, beautifully told, ingenious staging and use of props as you come to expect from Three Chairs and a Hat’ — audience feedback

🎭 🎬 Videos of the Edinburgh  Fringe and Camden Fringe productions of MRS PACK are available on Scenesaver or Three Chairs and a Hat’s YouTube channel.

🎭 🎬 ‘Fantastically clever …’ ‘snappy, inherently human’ … ‘Sharp and witty’ … ‘More than a touch of Sondheim’ … ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️  — Some of the lovely reviewer comments about VERITY and DEXTER, two musicals about one disastrous wedding, which played at the 2023 Edinburgh Fringe. We’re hoping to merge these companion shows into one mega-show in 2025 — in the meantime, head to Scenesaver and Three Chairs and a Hat’s YouTube channel for videos of the stage productions that made the semi-finals of the Edinburgh Film Awards for Winter 2024

🎭 🕺
WORKSHOPS

Aside from Three Chairs and a Hat, new terms have started for several workshops which I’m co-leading for MuMo Creative and Oxford Opera Company, based on a variety of themes ranging from Alice in Wonderland to Romeo & Juliet and Tosca. Other 2025 projects include a one-off MuMo event as part of the nationwide Let’s Dance initiative fronted by broadcasting legend Angela Rippon.

🎹
ON THE KEYS

I’m working on a number of productions and events as pianist and occasionally MD, including:
🎭 Be My Cabaret at the Old Fire Station in Oxford in February
🎭 Everybody’s Talking About Jamie at the Oxford Playhouse in April
🎶 A concert in June in aid of MIND Oxfordshire, featuring some songs from my stage musicals as well as work by other Oxford-based musicians
🎭 A new production of Cosí Fan Tutte for Opera Anywhere, with performances around the south starting in June
🎭 A fresh production and modern translation of The Marriage of Figaro in Somerset for Opera Anywhere
🎭 A musical theatre showcase by talented youth company MYCO in June
🎶 Opera favourites at Garsington Manor in July
🎭 Oxfordshire’s first production of The Great British Bake-Off: The Musical, at the Old Fire Station in September
🎭 A new musical by an Oxford-based writer, being premièred at Oxford’s Old Fire Station in October — watch this space for details!