Theatre and Dance Alum Co-Produces a Show With Four Tony Nominations
Nick Flatto ’10 is working on “Operation Mincemeat,” a musical about a British operation of the same name that took place during World War II.By: Ash Miller Thursday, May 29, 2025 03:46 PM
The cast of Operation Mincemeat: A New Musical. Nick Flatto ’10, pictured bottom left, is co-producer. | Production photos by Julieta CervantesIn 2023, Nick Flatto ’10 co-produced and directed “Stranger Sings! The Parody Musical,” inspired by the Netflix series “Stranger Things,” and now he’s co-producing “Operation Mincemeat,” the story of “a group of five people in MI5 who tried to move the needle of history by tricking Hitler,” as he describes it.
“Operation Mincemeat” is nominated for four Tony Awards this season: Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the Theatre, and Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical (for Jak Malone). Its run was recently extended through February 2026.
The show was developed by the British theatre collective SpitLip and premiered in 2019 at a small fringe venue. Due to rave reviews and growing buzz, it had a series of increasingly prominent runs, resulting in a 2023 West End run that nabbed them the Olivier Award for Best New Musical.
When Flatto, a theatre and dance double major at Muhlenberg, saw the West End production, he knew he had to be involved. “It is fringe theater,” he says. “I love that it started with unknowns. They’re a group of friends from [college] that created this together, and they’re comedic geniuses. They didn’t have the resources to hire other actors, so they used their improv skills and played 87 roles between the five of them. That’s fun to watch and the kind of theatre I want to be a part of.”
At the heart of the show is the joy of invention — the kind that turns a bizarre wartime scheme and gender-bending actors into a bold, hilarious, and unexpectedly moving musical. “We need joy more than ever,” Flatto says. “We also need works that are inherently political, which theatre is, but here we see a show about nerds, outsiders, defeating fascism, and ultimately defeating Hitler.”
Flatto brought the business knowledge he gained working on “Stranger Sings” to ensure this show’s success. He points out that the show was not nominated for technical awards like lighting or set design, partly because the goal was to be economical. As a result, the show has been in profit since its opening in America — an exciting milestone given that only 20-30% of Broadway shows recoup their initial investment.
“The Broadway model is very challenging,” Flatto says. “We’ve been covering our costs since week one, and that's because of the knowledge of the business side of theatre and the exciting word of mouth we’ve received."
In the days leading up to the Tonys, Flatto is spending his time writing his own show, doing nonprofit work, and starting a theatre company of his own. “I'm using everything Muhlenberg taught me working as a full-time artist now,” he says.
