Plays
About
Mary Gallagher is a writer/director/actress who has published two novels, “Spend it Foolishly” and “Quicksilver.” Her plays FATHER DREAMS, LITTLE BIRD, CHOCOLATE CAKE, BUDDIES, DOG EAT DOG, LOVE MINUS, and HOW TO SAY GOODBYE have been published by Dramatists Play Service and produced at the American Conservatory Theatre, the Loretto Hilton Repertory Theatre, Berkshire Theatre Festival, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Hartford Stage Company, Theatre Three, Victory Gardens, the Alley Theatre and the Main Street Theatre, among many others; in New York City at the Vineyard Theatre, the Ensemble Studio Theatre, the American Place Theatre, Home, and Manhattan Punchline; and in Canada, Ireland, and Australia. CHOCOLATE CAKE was produced Off-Broadway in 1983 as part of WIN/LOSE/DRAW, which also included FINAL PLACEMENT by Ara Watson and LITTLE MISS FRESNO by Gallagher and Watson. Gallagher and Watson also teamed up for the CBS-TV movie “Nobody’s Child,” starring Marlo Thomas and directed by Lee Grant, which won many awards, including the 1986 Writers Guild Award and the Luminas Award from Women in Film. Gallagher’s other film and TV credits include a feature for MGM, TV movies for CBS and HBO, and “Nobody Home,” a feature for Patrick Palmer and Paramount. Gallagher has received grants from the Office For Advanced Drama Research (1977) and the University of Wisconsin/LaCrosse (1978); a New Dramatists residency at the Tyrone Guthrie Center in Ireland (1984); a playwriting fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation (1983); the Rockefeller Foundation (1984); the National Endowment for the Arts (1987); and the New York Foundation for the Arts (1988). She was co-winner of the 1986 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for HOW TO SAY GOODBYE. Her major theatre project during 1988-90 was DE DONDE?, a play about Central American refugees in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, which was workshopped at the Alley Theatre on a residency grant from the NEA and at River Arts Theatre on a grant from NYFA, and was directed by Ms. Gallagher in its first production at Houston’s Main Street Theater. DE DONDE? was given its world professional premiere at the Cincinnati Playhouse, where it won the Rosenthal New Play Prize. It has been produced at Stage Left in Chicago, Friends and Artists Theatre in Los Angeles, and in the 1990 Festival Latino at the Public Theatre. DE DONDE? was published in “American Theatre” magazine in November, 1989. Ms. Gallagher is an alumna of New Dramatists and a member of the Ensemble Studio Theatre and the Dramatists Guild.