Nell Geisslinger is a multi-disciplinary artist who enjoys exploring human relationships -- with each other, and with the wider, natural world. She does so by breathing life into characters on the stage, the page, with original music and lyrics, marionettes, and engaging in creative collaborations with other artists and causes she supports. Click here to download her resume.
The daughter of a veteran Oregon Shakespeare Festival actor and hardworking film/tv actress, Nell spent her childhood in greenrooms and on sets throughout the country and world. These experiences gave her a love of adventure and performance, while her childhood base in Ashland, Oregon gave her a steady connection with nature and community. While living in Los Angeles as a teenager, her stepfather introduced her to The Kinks, Traffic and Steeleye Span, imparting a love of 1960s pop, rock and folk that continues today.
At 18 Nell was awarded an acting apprenticeship at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. She spent the next few years sitting in on rehearsals, diving into understudy tracks and sneaking into back rows, booths and catwalks to watch whatever was playing whenever she could. Through the mentorship of Kenneth Albers, Libby Appel, Penny Metropulos, Robynn Rodriguez, Lue Douthit and many beloved others she sought to develop the stamina and versatility of a repertory company member. Nell began her tenure at OSF playing the maid in a production of Idiot's Delight, and worked her way up to repping Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire and Kate in The Taming of the Shrew in 2013. She remains grateful to those who lifted her up in Ashland, and is thrilled to be back in OSF's acting company for the 2025 season with artistic director Tim Bond and associate artistic director Rosa Joshi at the helm.
Nell has appeared at regional theaters including South Coast Rep, Berkeley Rep, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Milwaukee Rep, Los Angeles Women's Shakespeare Company, the Theater at Boston Court Pasadena and the Utah Shakespeare Festival.
From 2014 - 2023 she resided in Los Angeles where she appeared in numerous commercials, worked as a writer/producer on The Cooking Channel's Food: Fact or Fiction? and served as both a showrunner's and writers' assistant, developing projects for Alexa Junge, Nicole Perlman, STARZ, Lionsgate, Max, Apple TV+ and others.
A founding member of The Meriwethers band, Nell traveled throughout the Western United States from 2014 - 2020, sharing original songs in libraries, classrooms and commercial venues. This work brought her into Montana for the first time in 2019, where she fell hard for both the big sky and a big-hearted archaeologist running historical trips on the Missouri River. She married Kevin O'Briant at the Missoula County Courthouse in October of 2023.
Winter 2025 has Nell in rehearsals for Julius Caesar and As You LikeIt in Ashland. She is thankful for recent collaborations with Jan Michael Looking Wolf & Native Roseandthe Buffalo Field Campaign, as well as various puppet community engagement projects in Missoula, MT over the past year. When she's not performing or making puppets and videos, Nell enjoys rafting the Blackfoot River, cooking and creating with Kevin, and loving on 16 year-old terrier mutt Wilton (aka Special Boy).