Draft:Honor Molloy

Honor Molloy
Born	Dublin, Ireland
Occupation	Playwright, Novelist
Nationality	Irish, American
Alma mater	Brown University, New York University
Notable works	Crackskull Row, Smarty Girl: Dublin Savage
Notable awards	Radcliffe Fellowship, Pew Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts Playwriting Award

Honor Molloy (born May 22, 1961) also known as "Honour Kane," is an Irish-American playwright and novelist. She is the recipient of the Berrilla Kerr Award for American Theatre, two Fredrick Loewe Awards from the Dramatist Guild of America, and a National Endowment of the Arts Playwriting Award.

In 2017 she received a Proclamation from the New York City Council for "Contributions to Irish Culture."

Biography

Early life

Molloy was born in Dublin, Ireland, where she developed an early love for theatre. Her father John Molloy was a prolific actor and playwright at the Abbey Theatre, and her mother Yvonne Molloy was a writer and director for RTÉ and BBC Radio. In an interview with the Irish Repertory Theatre, Molloy would later recall that,

"In the 1950s and 60s, my mother and father worked together in Dublin theaters – from Madame Cogley's Pocket Theatre to The Pike, to The Gaiety, to The Gate. I was in and out of those theaters since I could walk – backstage, in the dressing rooms, waggling my shoes while waiting in the velvet seats for the play to begin. Actors and producers, writers and musicians dropped by our house when they were in the neighborhood. There was no separation between theatre and life. My big sister Siobhán told me stories – many of them Irish myths. So when I come up with the notion for a new play that's set in Ireland – immediately there are ghosts, and mystery, and shifting theatrical worlds."

Molloy immigrated to Pennsylvania with her mother while she was in primary school.

Education

Molloy attended NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, where she obtained a BFA in Acting. She later attended Brown University, where she studied under the playwright Paula Vogel and received an MFA in Literary Arts.

Career

Playwriting

Upon completing her MFA, Molloy was awarded a fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts to develop her play "Just a Babe" in residency at London's Royal Court Theatre.

From 1991–1994 Molloy authored original text for experimental dance pieces by Susan Hefner & Company, including "Marrow Clamor," "Eve of Consumption," and "Unruly Graces." In reviewing the latter piece for The New York Times, Jennifer Dunning noted "The simplicity and plain-spokenness of Ms. Molloy's dialogue made a touching portrait of a fierce yet timid Angelina Grimke, a 19th-century abolitionist who was the first woman to address the Massachusetts State Legislature."

Molloy's plays Rehearsing the Granda and Sticky n Juicy on da Senate Floor were both produced as part The Public Theatre's New Work Series in 1991.

Maiden Voyages was produced by New Georges at Theatre Row in 1992. Directed by Jessica Bauman, featuring an ensemble of Susan Bernfield, Tobi Brydon, Robin Howard, Susan McKeown, Colleen McQuade, Bronagh Murphy, Marian Quinn, and Caroline Winterson. The play depicts an Irish midwife working in a Dublin maternity ward. In a 2011 interview with the New York Foundation for the Arts, Molloy noted "Maiden Voyages, my first full-length play, starts with a woman arriving at a maternity hospital with a dead fetus inside her. She's been badly beaten by her husband. Many of my plays repeat some version of this scene."

Monument premiered at the Actors Theatre of Louisville as part of the 2002 Humana Festival of New American Plays. The one-act tells the story of "two emergency telephone operators handle a terrifying series of calls on Tuesday morning, September 11, 2001." Monument was subsequently published by PlayScripts, Inc. and has been performed regionally across the United States. In a review from Booklist, Jack Helbig noted "Louisville's annual Humana Festival is famous as a showcase for new plays and playwrights. The 2002 festival included new works by such big guns as Anne Bogart, Tina Howe, Julia Jordan, Charles L. Mee, and Adam Rapp, while emerging playwrights were relegated to Humana's National One-Act Play Contest. Of these, Honor Molloy's moving meditation on 9/11 is the most haunting."

Madame Killer was first developed at the 92nd St Y's Makor Theater Project in 2003, with Marsha Mason in the titular role. The play later premiered at Clubbed Thumbs' Summerworks in 2005. Directed by Wier Harman, featuring an ensemble of Marsha Stephanie Blake, Aedin Moloney, Maria Porter, Jonathan Rose, Mark Shanahan, and Melinda Wade. The play is a "gothic noir" about Ann Lohman, a British-born American abortion provider and midwife who practiced in New York City. For Molloy, Lohman "was a paradigm of capitalism, worth millions ... but she had secrets. This fair doctor owned a black book filled with incriminating evidence about all the women she serviced over the years, striking fear in both rich and poor if this information ever got out!" Madame Killer was subsequently produced at the Belvoir Street Theatre in Sydney, Australia as part of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Festival. The play was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Playwriting Award.

In Pigeon House was first developed at the Irish Repertory Theatre in 2002, after receiving a New York State Council on the Arts Artists Fellowship. The play later premiered at the Irish Theatre of Chicago in 2012. Directed by Brian Shaw, and featuring an ensemble of Ira Amyx, Katherine Schwartz, Barbara Figgins, and John Mossman. In a review from The Chicago Reader, Tony Adler noted "In Pigeon House is ultimately a tribute to the spirit of stage play through the generations. I'm sure I'd have caught a lot more if I were Irish, but patience is rewarded here by Molloy's cunning and surreal sensibility—channeling a whole slew of Irish bards, from Beckett to Martin McDonagh and Enda Walsh—and by the fit-upish elan of Seanachai Theatre's own cast of artistes under the direction of Brian Shaw."

Crackskull Row was first developed in Co. Galway, Ireland as part of the Inishbon Arts Arts Festival in 2000. The play premiered in 2016 at The Workshop Theatre, produced by Nancy Manocherian's the cell. Directed by Kira Simring, and featuring a cast of Gina Costigan, Terry Donnelly, Colin Lane, and John Charles McLaughlin. The production subsequently transferred to The Irish Repertory Theatre for an additional eight week engagement. The New York Times deemed the play a "Critic's Pick" writing, "This is a piece of Irish gothic; other practitioners include Conor McPherson, a specialist in haunting conversations, and Martin McDonagh, the poet of dark comedy. Now Ms. Molloy enters the ring, exploring rage, dissolution, sexual perversity and family history with a bleak and penetrating acuity... The performers, are uniformly on point, Siena Zoë Allen's costumes, drab but with bursts of color and pattern, complement the glowing hues in Gertjan Houben's lighting. But it is Ms. Molloy's salty, slangy yet singsong dialogue that most resonates. Mr. McPherson and Mr. McDonagh might have to set another place at their table."

Molloy is an active member of New Dramatists, a development space for new playwrights. Her plays have also been developed by Lincoln Center Theatre, the Australian National Playwrights Conference, the Hedgebrook Women Playwrights Festival, the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, The Irish Arts Centre, Origin Theater Company, The Royal Court Theatre, The Playwrighst Center, Portland Center Stage, and City Theatre Company.

Fiction

Molloy's audiobook Smarty Girl: Dublin Savage was published by Simon & Schuster Audio in 2012, and is distributed internationally through Audible. The voice cast includes Molloy, Kevin Holohan, Aedin Moloney, and Susan McKeown. In a review for The Irish Voice, Cahir O'Doherty said "The richness of the telling and the lessons of it can be weighed in every line. Many Irish books will be released this year, but few will be this candid or this complete... Smarty Girl: Dublin Savage is a lighthouse intelligence that doesn't miss a stitch."

Molloy has taught courses in english and creative writing at Columbia University, the City University of New York, and Brown University.

Personal Life

From 1983 – 1984 Molloy was married to House of Lies creator Matthew Carnahan.

Molloy publicly identifies as queer and serves on the organizing committee for St. Pat's for All.

In addition to her work as a writer, Molloy is also a prolific editor. She spent ten years as an Acquisitions Editor at Simon and Schuster. Currently she serves as Editorial Director of GeistM, an subsidiary of the international tech and media incubator Gramercy Labs, with offices in New York, London, and Dublin.

Molloy lives in Jackson Heights, Queens.

Awards

• Radcliffe Fellowship
• Pew Fellowship
• National Endowment for the Arts Playwriting Award
• New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Playwriting/Screenwriting
• New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Playwriting
• New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Nonfiction
• New York Foundation for the Arts, City Artists Corps Grant
• New York State Council on the Arts Fellowship
• 2 Residencies at MacDowell
• 2 Residencies at Yaddo
• 2 Residencies at Annaghmakerrig
• Residency at Millay Arts
• Residency at Hedgebrook
• Residency at the Edward F. Albee Foundation
• The Berrilla Kerr Award for American Theatre
• 2 Fredrick Loewe Awards from The Dramatist Guild of America
• Origin 1st Irish Theatre Festival, Best Playwright Award