Uruguayan actor and puppeteer. Nicolás Loureiro dedicated his life to puppetry. He discovered puppetry very early on in the theatre company, El Galpón.

Loureiro worked as puppeteer and director in many works for puppets, among them: El mago Triuli (The Wizard Triuli, 1953); El retablillo de Don Cristóbal (The Puppet Play of Don Cristóbal); Amor de don Perlimplín con Belisa en su jardín (The Love of Don Perlimplín and Belisa in His Garden) by Federico García Lorca, directed by Rosita Baffico; La farsa del pastelero (The Farce of the Pastry Chef, 1957); El burlador burlado (The Trickster Tricked, 1957); El casamiento del sapo y la rana (The Marriage of the Toad and the Frog, 1953). Based on the performance of the work Caleidoscopio (Kaleidoscope, 1967), he built a performance space – also called Caleidoscopio – that would reflect the techniques used to date by Uruguayan puppeteers.

In 1977, he exiled himself to Costa Rica for a year before relocating to Mexico City where he reunited with his sister, Blanca Loureiro, also a member of the El Galpón theatre company. There, he continued working as a puppeteer, writing, acting and directing for the troupe before returning to Montevideo in 1984.

Nicolás Loureiro is co-author (with Aída Rodríguez) of Como son los títeres (What Are Puppets Like, 1971), an important historical and theoretical contribution to puppetry.

(See Uruguay.)