Maddie Nguyen is a Vietnamese-American actor, playwright, and poet hailing from the Pacific Northwest. Professional theater credits include productions such as Heiner Muller’s Hamletmachine (ensemble member/deviser, 2018 Portland Fertile Ground Festival); Into Me See (Juliet, 2019 Theatre 33), The Thirst (Jill, 2020 NW Theater Workshop), and alex getting better (Ruthie, 2021 Garden of Voices). Her new solo show, i defy you, stars, debuted as part of the 2021 Portland Fertile Ground Festival in February.

She has also cultivated various on-screen credits in commercials and as a background talent in movies such as Netflix’s Metal Lords. Off-stage, she has worked as a dramaturg for Orphic Plays, and wrote and directed the culture shows for the University of Portland’s Vietnamese Student Association from 2016-2019. A production of her original Zoom play, “The Guest,” premiered on December 18, 2020. In the summer of 2017, Maddie was awarded a fellowship through the ITJA program at the American College Theater Festival to attend the National Critics Institute at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center during its national playwriting conference, the youngest fellow ever at the time. Maddie is also an accomplished poet and musician.

She was a competing poet in Portland Slamlandia’s Women of the World Poetry Slam Finals in December 2020, and qualified for the semi-final slam in March 2020. She is a founding member of the parody folk band, The AA (Asian-American) Batteries, along with her fellow singer-songwriter Katarina Yo.  She holds a BA in Theater Arts with a Performance Emphasis from the University of Portland.