Honor Molloy

Honor Molloy is the author of the novel Smarty Girl: Dublin Savage, a fictionalized account of her childhood in Ireland (Simon & Schuster Audio, 2012). Her play Crackskull Row was developed and produced by The Cell Theatre in 2016. This world premiere won Best Production as part of Origin’s 1st Irish Theatre Festival. The following year, the play transferred to the Irish Repertory Theatre and was named a New York Times Critic’s Pick. Her other work developed with 1st Irish includes Dublin Noir (2023), All the Last Weekend (2021), Round Room (2020), Girl in the River (2019), and Last Night [Again] (2018).

Molloy’s produced plays include and in my heart (The Dublin International Gay Theatre Festival), In Pigeon House (Irish Theatre of Chicago), Madame Killer (Clubbed Thumb), Monument (Actors Theatre of Louisville, Humana Festival), Tongues of Stone (Belvoir Street Theatre), Molloy (Todo Con Nada), Lesbian Cheek (WOW Café), Rehearsing the Granda (The Public Theater), Sticky n Juicy on da Senate Floor (The Public Theater), and Maiden Voyages (New Georges). A longtime collaborator of Susan Hefner & Dancers, Molloy authored the librettos for Attempted Flight (1990), Marrow Clamor (1992), Unruly Graces (1993), and Eve of Consumption (1994).

She has received grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, A.S.K Theater Projects, the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. Among numerous awards and honors, Molloy is the recipient of a Creative Capital Award, the Berilla Kerr Playwriting Award, the Frederick Loewe Award for Musical Theatre, the Joe Callaway Award, the Whitfield Cook Award, and the Mary Roberts Rinehart Foundation Award. In 2017, she received a Proclamation from the New York City Council for "Contributions to Irish Culture."

An alumna of New Dramatists, Molloy has completed residencies with Yaddo, MacDowell, Millay, Annaghmakerrig, Hedgebrook, the Tennessee Williams Center, and the Edward F. Albee Foundation. She is also a former Playwright-in-Residence at Lincoln Center Theater, the Royal Court Theatre, the Australian National Playwrights Centre, the Playwrights’ Center, Portland Center Stage, Flesh & Blood Theatre, and The Cell Theatre.

Andy Webster of The New York Times has compared Molloy’s work favorably to that of Martin McDonagh and Conor McPherson. Stanley Crouch of the New York Daily News once described Molloy as “beyond recommendation, her writing and performances should be mandatory events for all civilized people.” She holds a B.F.A. in Drama from NYU Tisch and an M.F.A. in Playwriting from Brown University, where she was a George Radner Fellow. Molloy lives in Jackson Heights, Queens.