Anthony Nikolchev (Director, Creator, Performer) is the co-artistic director of The Useless Room, a movement-based experimental performance group in Los Angeles, USA that has produced performances and films, including, "The (Un)Double," “The Last One,” “All The Things You Said You Never Said Before You Could Ever Say,” “Ínsula” and the short film tryptic“ Past Hope Now,” touring festivals all over the world, including The 2025 Venice Biennale under Willem Dafoe’s curation, Summer hall at the Edinburgh Fringe, The Theater Olympics in New Delhi, The Edmonton International Film Festival and Dance at the Odyssey in Los Angeles. He is on the faculty at the California Institute of the Arts School of Theater. He holds a dual bachelor’s in Theater and an interdisciplinary degree in Bioethics from Wesleyan University and spenthis20s working between Central Europe, the US (Chicago, NYC, Los Angeles), and the UK. Notable performances include a recent collaboration with Source Material alongside long time dancers from the Pina Bausch Tanz theater Wuppertal Julie Shanahan and Julie Stanzek, his self-generated solo performances, Look, What I Don’t Understand, (a “tour de force” by the LA Times critics and Best Actor at New York City’s United SOLO Festival) and The Echoes Off The Walls Underground Are Louder Than Your Footsteps Above Me, (a second award of Best Actor at United SOLO in NYC), Viven Wood’s Exile (Dance City Newcastle, UK), San Diego Opera’s Carmen by Peter Brook (dir. Alexander Gedeon), the London and LA runs of The Day Shall Declare It directed by Annie Saunders and Sophie Bortolussi and anything with Yura Kordonsky (mentor and collaborator). On film, he has been on screens of different sizes, including at the 2020 Settimana Internazionale della Critica at the Venice Film Festival and Amazon’s experimental animation series Undone. He’s a creative director for HeLo and used to work with chimpanzees and gorillas at Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo.

Anthony developed and filmed The (Un)double in a responsive residency at CultureHub LA before it went on to The Venice Bienniale and La Mama.