Mary Gallagher is an American playwright, screenwriter, novelist, actress, director and teacher. For six years, she was artistic director of Gypsy, a theatre company in the Hudson Valley

Hudson Valley

The Hudson Valley comprises the valley of the Hudson River and its adjacent communities in New York State, United States, from northern Westchester County northward to the cities of Albany and Troy.-History:...

, New York, which collaborated with many artists to create site-specific mask-and-puppet music-theatre with texts and lyrics by Gallagher. These pieces included Premanjali and the 7 Geese Brothers, Ama and The Scottish Play. In 1996-97, she directed the Playwrights Workshop at the University of Iowa

University of Iowa

The University of Iowa is a public state-supported research university located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the oldest public university in the state. The university is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees...

, and she currently teaches playwriting and screenwriting at New York University/Tisch School of the Arts

Tisch School of the Arts

Tisch School of the Arts is one of the 15 schools that make up New York University ....

. She is a member of Actors & Writers, a theater company in the Hudson Valley, and the Ensemble Studio Theater in New York City. She is an alumna of New Dramatists, where she developed many of her plays and created and moderated the series, "You Can Make a Life: Conversations with Playwrights" from 1994 to 2001. She is married and has two daughters.

Plays

Mary Gallagher’s plays Father Dreams, Little Bird, Chocolate Cake, Buddies, Dog Eat Dog, Love Minus, How To Say Goodbye, De Donde? and Windshook have been published by Dramatists Play Service and produced at such theatres as the American Conservatory Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Hartford Stage Company, the Alley Theatre, the Main Street Theatre and the Cincinnati Playhouse; in NYC at the Vineyard Theatre, the American Place Theatre, the Ensemble Studio Theatre, the Women’s Project, HOME, the Provincetown Playhouse and the New York Shakespeare Festival; and in many other countries. "De Donde?" was published in American Theater in 1989. Windshook was published in New Plays from Act’s Young Conservatory Vol. I and Best Plays by Women 1996. Many of Gallagher’s short plays are anthologized, including Perfect, Sandwich, Brother and Bedtime.

Screenplays

Her screenplays for Paramount, MGM, HBO, NBC, CBS, Lifetime and Showtime include Nobody's Child (CBS), co-written by Ara Watson and directed by Lee Grant (Writers Guild Award, Emmy for Marlo Thomas); Bonds of Love (CBS), starring Treat Williams, Kelly McGilliss and Hal Holbrook (Best TV Movie of the Year, Banff International Television Festival); and The Passion of Ayn Rand, starring Helen Mirren, Peter Fonda and Eric Stoltz, which premiered at Sundance and aired on Showtime (Emmy for Mirren, Golden Globe for Fonda). Gallagher was also a staff writer for Jojo's Circus, a hit stop-motion animation show on the Disney Channel.

Fellowships and honors

She has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship

Guggenheim Fellowship

Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...

, a Rockefeller Fellowship, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize

Susan Smith Blackburn Prize

The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize established in 1978, is for English-language women playwrights. Named for Susan Smith, alumna of Smith College, who died of breast cancer.-Winners:* 1978-79 Mary O'Malley* 1979-80 Barbara Schneider...

, the Rosenthal New Play Prize, the Writers Guild Award, and three fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts

National Endowment for the Arts

The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...

.

Recent works

Many of her plays continue to be produced in the U.S. and other countries. She is currently working on a full-length play, For Your Love, and a 19th century novel, Exquisite in Mourning.

Theatrical premiers

Most of these plays are in print and continue to be produced in the U.S. and other countries.

WIN/LOSE/DRAW (co-author Ara Watson) Spanish premiere, Palma de Mallorca, Spain, 2005.

FIRST COMMUNION City Theatre, Miami, FL, 2004

FARTHER ALONG Musical with composer Louise Beach. Commissioned and produced by the University of New Hampshire,2000.

LOVE MINUS NYC: Players Club, 1998.

THE SCOTTISH PLAY Gypsy, Compost West, Capital Repertory Theatre, at the Masonic Temple, Albany, NY, 1998.

AMA Gypsy, MaskWork Unltd., Compost West, Kingston Point Park, NY, 1996.

PREMANJALI AND THE SEVEN GEESE BROTHERS Gypsy & MaskWork Unltd., Widow Jane Cave, Rosendale, NY, 1994.

WINDSHOOK Young Conservatory & Professional Company, ACT, 1992, 1996.

DE DONDE? Cincinnati Playhouse, 1990. NYC: New York Shakespeare Festival, 1990.

ADULTERY, BROTHER, NYC: HOME, 1988.

INSOMNIA, CHILDREN OF DYSFUNCTIONAL COOKS

HOW TO SAY GOODBYE Humana Festival, 1986. NYC: Vineyard Theatre, 1987.

BEDTIME NYC: Ark Theatre Company, 1984.

SPECIAL FAMILY THINGS (co-author Ara Watson) NYC: Women’s Project, 1984.

DOG EAT DOG Hartford Stage Company, 1983.

BUDDIES NYC: Ensemble Studio Theatre, 1982.

CHOCOLATE CAKE Humana Festival, Actors Theatre of Louisville, 1981.

(WIN/LOSE/DRAW) NYC: Provincetown Playhouse, 1983.

LITTLE BIRD Berkshire Theatre Festival, 1980. NYC: 78th Street Theatre Lab, 1980.

FATHER DREAMS American Conservatory Theatre, 1978. Loretto Hilton Repertory Theatre, 1980. NYC: Ensemble Studio Theatre, 1981.

FLY AWAY HOME American Conservatory Theatre, 1977.

External links