Jon Nicholls is making his HGO debut as sound designer for Breaking the Waves. Nicholls has worked extensively in theater as both a composer and sound designer. Highlights include Dark with Excessive Bright, an immersive ballet work at the Royal Opera House with music by Missy Mazzoli; April de Angelis’s adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend at the National Theatre; Iqbal Khan’s revival of East Is East at the National Theatre; working with John Malkovich on Good Canary at the Rose; and collaborating with Jamiroquai’s Sola Akingbola on the score for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Hamlet. He composed and sound-designed the world premiere of the stage adaptation of Joe Simpson’s Touching the Void, which went on to a sold-out West End run and international tour, and created the music and sound design for Theatre Royal Bath’s production of Florian Zeller’s The Mother, nominated for Best New Play in the WhatsOnStage Awards. Other highlights include Owen Sheers’s Pink Mist at Bristol Old Vic and the Bush, which was nominated for best sound design, Off-West End Awards; Idomeneus and Dear Elizabeth at the Gate; and the National Theatre’s European premiere productions of Spring Storm and Beyond the Horizon. Nicholls is the winner of the Best Use of Sound award at the 2022 BBC Audio Drama Awards and was nominated again for the same award in 2023. He was also nominated for Best Sound Design at the 2023 Audio Production Awards. The Radio 4 documentary series In Dark Corners, which he sound-designed and mixed, won Gold for Best Factual Series at the 2023 Audio & Radio Industry Awards and Radio Programme of the Year at the 2023 British Press Guild Awards.