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. 

🎬 You can see both animations on the Three Chairs and a Hat YouTube channel or international digital platform Scenesaver,  as well as a brand new episode of PETER: Foundations, 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) — and there’ll be news soon of more live performances, at Oxford’s Old Fire Station in January 2026. Watch this space!

  

‘A gem of a show … this musical could 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

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WORKSHOPS

Aside from Three Chairs and a Hat, I’m co-leading weekly Dance for Parkinson’s and Dance for Joy workshops for MuMo Creative and English National Ballet. The summer term has been based on Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty and Kander and Ebbe’s Chicago and we’ve had a great time channelling wicked Carabosse and lethal Roxie! Other 2025 MuMo include a performance as part of the nationwide Let’s Dance initiative fronted by broadcasting legend Angela Rippon; and a public workshop at the Weston Library based on its fascinating Listen In exhibition about radio and the home.

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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
🎶 Connections, a concert in aid of MIND Oxfordshire, at Somerville College on 7th June, 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 concert in September to celebrate the life of Ron Hewitt, who performed in Oxford theatres for six decades
🎶 A double bill of Trial By Jury and Amahl and the Night Visitors in Brackley in November