Conor McPherson | |
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Born | |
Occupation(s) | Playwright, screenwriter, director |
Conor McPherson (born 6 August 1971) is an Irish playwright, screenwriter and director of stage and film. In recognition of his contribution to world theatre, McPherson was awarded an honorary doctorate of literature in June 2013 by University College Dublin. [1]
McPherson was born in Dublin. [2] He was educated at University College Dublin and began writing his first plays there as a member of UCD Dramsoc, the college's dramatic society, and went on to found Fly by Night Theatre Company which produced several of his plays. He is considered one of the best contemporary Irish playwrights; his plays have attracted good reviews, and have been performed internationally (notably in the West End and on Broadway).
The Weir opened at the Royal Court before transferring to the West End and Broadway. It won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play for 1999.
In the same year he was one of the recipients of the V Europe Prize Theatrical Realities awarded to the Royal Court Theatre [3] (with Sarah Kane, Mark Ravenhill, Jez Butterworth, Martin McDonagh). [4]
His 2001 play, Port Authority tells of three interwoven lives. The play was first produced by the Gate Theatre of Dublin but premiered at the New Ambassadors Theatre in London in February 2001, before moving to the Gate Theatre in April of that year. The production was directed by McPherson himself. New York's Atlantic Theater Company staged a production of the play in the spring of 2008, starring Brian d'Arcy James, and Tony Award winners John Gallagher Jr. and Jim Norton. The New York Times critic Ben Brantley said, "I found myself holding on to what these actors had to say as if I were a five-year-old at bedtime being introduced to The Arabian Nights."
McPherson also directed his play, Dublin Carol , at the Atlantic Theater Company, New York, in 2003.
His 2004 play Shining City opened at the Royal Court and prompted The Daily Telegraph to describe him as "the finest dramatist of his generation". [5] A meditation on regret, guilt and confusion, the play is set entirely within the Dublin offices of a psychiatrist who himself has psychological secrets. Whilst much of the play takes the form of monologues delivered by a patient, the everyday stories and subtle poignancy and humour make it a riveting experience. It subsequently opened on Broadway in 2006 and was nominated for two Tony Awards, including Best Play.
In September 2006, to great critical acclaim, McPherson made his National Theatre debut as both author and director with The Seafarer at the Cottesloe auditorium, starring Karl Johnson and Jim Norton, with Ron Cook as their poker-playing, Mephistophelean guest. Norton won an Olivier Award for his performance while McPherson was nominated for both the Olivier and Evening Standard Awards for Best Play. In October 2007 The Seafarer opened on Broadway, keeping with it most of its creative team, including McPherson as director and both Jim Norton and Conleth Hill in their respective roles, with David Morse taking over as Sharky, and Ciarán Hinds portraying Mr. Lockhart. The production on Broadway received some positive reviews including such statements as "McPherson is quite possibly the finest playwright of his generation" [6] from Ben Brantley at The New York Times and "Succinct, startling and eerie, and the funniest McPherson play to date" [7] from The Observer. Norton's performance as Richard Harkin in The Seafarer at the National Theatre won the 2007 Best Supporting Actor Laurence Olivier Award, and he won a Tony Award in 2008 for Best Featured Actor in a play.
McPherson wrote and directed a stage adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's story The Birds , which opened in September 2009 at the Gate Theatre in Dublin.
In 2011 the National Theatre London premiered his play The Veil at the Lyttleton. Described by The Times as "a cracking fireside tale of haunting and decay" [8] it is set in 1822 and marked McPherson's first foray into period drama. This vein continued with a striking new translation of August Strindberg's The Dance of Death premiered at the Trafalgar Studios in London at the end of 2012. His version was described as "a profoundly seminal work" by The Guardian which also managed, The Times said, to be "Shockingly funny". [9]
The Donmar Warehouse mounted a season of McPherson's work in 2013 with a revival of The Weir and the world premiere of The Night Alive . The Weir was hailed once again as "A modern classic" by The Daily Telegraph and "A contemporary classic" by The Guardian [10] while The Night Alive was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Play and described as "Another triumph" by The Independent on Sunday and "A masterstroke" by Time Out. The Financial Times said "sees the Irish playwright at his compassionate best." [11]
The Night Alive transferred to the Atlantic Theatre New York, where it was awarded the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play 2014, and also received Best Play nominations from the Drama Desk and Lucille Lortell Awards [12]
McPherson's play Girl from the North Country , where the dramatic action is broken up by 20 songs by Bob Dylan, opened at London's The Old Vic on 26 July 2017. [13] The play is set in a boarding house in 1934 in Duluth, Minnesota, the birthplace of Dylan. The project began when Dylan's office approached McPherson and suggested creating a play using Dylan's songs. The drama received favourable reviews. [14] [15]
The film of his first screenplay, I Went Down , was critically acclaimed and a great commercial success. His first feature film as a director, Saltwater , won the CICAE award for Best Film at the Berlin Film Festival. His second feature film was The Actors , which he wrote and directed.
He is the director and co-writer of The Eclipse , a film which had its world premiere at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival. It was picked up for distribution by Magnolia Pictures and was released in US cinemas in spring 2010. [16] The film subsequently won the Melies D'Argent Award for Best European Film at Sitges in Spain – the world's premier horror and fantasy genre festival. At The 2010 Irish Film and Television Awards The Eclipse won the awards for Best Film and Best Screenplay. [17] Ciarán Hinds won the Best Actor Award at the Tribeca Film Festival for his portrayal of Michael Farr.
In 2013, he wrote the last episode of Quirke . In 2020, he co-wrote the feature film adaptation of the Artemis Fowl books by Eoin Colfer. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was released digitally worldwide on Disney+ on June 12, 2020.
McPherson has cited James Joyce and Stanley Kubrick as two of his "heroes". [18]
Theatre-related awards won by McPherson include: [19]
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Year | Title | Roles | Notes |
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1997 | I Went Down | Loser in nightclub | Also writer |
2000 | Saltwater | — | Director and writer |
Endgame | — | Director | |
Paths to Freedom | Video shop assistant | "Episode 4" | |
2002 | Fergus's Wedding | Dermot | "Episode 1" |
2003 | The Actors | — | Director and writer |
2004 | Rory O'Shea Was Here | Job applicant | |
2009 | The Eclipse | — | Director and writer |
2014 | Quirke | — | Writer, episode "Elegy for April" |
2017 | Paula | — | Writer and executive producer, 3 episodes |
2020 | Artemis Fowl | — | Co-writer |
Dervla Kirwan is an Irish actress. She has received a number of accolades, including two IFTA Awards for her performances in the film Ondine (2009) and the RTÉ thriller series Smother (2021–2023) respectively.
Jim Norton is an Irish stage, film and television character actor, known for his work in the theatre, most notably in Conor McPherson's The Seafarer, and on television as Bishop Brennan in the sitcom Father Ted.
Martin Faranan McDonagh is a British-Irish playwright and filmmaker. He is known for his absurdist dark humour which often challenges the modern theatre aesthetic. He has won numerous accolades including an Academy Award, six BAFTA Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and three Olivier Awards, with nominations for five Tony Awards.
Ciarán Hinds is an actor from Belfast, Northern Ireland. Hinds is known for a range of screen and stage roles. He has starred in feature films including The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989), Persuasion (1995), Oscar and Lucinda (1997), Road to Perdition (2002), The Sum of All Fears (2002), Munich (2005), Amazing Grace (2007), There Will Be Blood (2007), Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (2011), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), Silence (2016), First Man (2018) and Belfast (2021). He was nominated for an Oscar and BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Belfast.
Risteard Cooper is an Irish actor, comedian, singer and writer and is one third of comedy trio Après Match.
Ronald G. Cook is an English actor. He has been active in film, television and theatre since the 1970s.
Michael Grandage CBE is a British theatre director and producer. He is currently artistic director of the Michael Grandage Company. From 2002 to 2012 he was artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse in London and from 2000 to 2005 he was artistic director of Sheffield Theatres.
Shining City is a play by Conor McPherson, set in Dublin, which was first performed in the West End in 2004.
Stones in His Pockets is a two-hander written in 1996 by Marie Jones for the DubbleJoint Theatre Company in Dublin, Ireland.
John Crowley is an Irish film and theatre director. He is best known for the films Brooklyn (2015) and his debut feature, Intermission (2003), for which he won an Irish Film and Television Award for Best Director. He is a brother of the designer Bob Crowley.
The Weir is a play written by Conor McPherson in 1997. It was first produced at The Royal Court Theatre Upstairs in London, England, on 4 July 1997. It opened on Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theatre on 1 April 1999. As well as several other locations in the UK and the U.S., the play has been performed in Ireland, Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Australia and Canada.
Brendan Coyle is a British-Irish actor. He won the Olivier Award for Best Performance in a Supporting Role for The Weir in 1999. He also played Nicholas Higgins in the miniseries North & South, Robert Timmins in the first three series of Lark Rise to Candleford, and more recently Mr Bates, the valet, in Downton Abbey, which earned him a nomination for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series and a BAFTA nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
The Irish Repertory Theatre is an Off-Broadway theatre company founded in 1988.
Tom Jordan Murphy was an Irish theatre and film actor best known for his 1998 Tony Award winning performance in The Beauty Queen of Leenane.
The Seafarer is a 2006 play by Irish playwright Conor McPherson. It is set on Christmas Eve in Baldoyle, a coastal suburb north of Dublin city. The play centers on James "Sharky" Harkin, an alcoholic who has recently returned to live with his blind, aging brother, Richard Harkin. As Sharky attempts to stay off the bottle during the holidays, he contends with the hard-drinking, irascible Richard and his own haunted conscience. It was nominated for multiple Tony Awards as well as the Olivier Award and Evening Standard Award for Best Play.
Dearbhla Molloy is an Irish actress.
Laura Donnelly is a Northern Irish actress. She is the recipient of a Laurence Olivier Award as well as a nomination for a Tony Award. On television, she is known for her roles in the Starz series Outlander (2014–2017), the ITV series Beowulf (2016), and the HBO series The Nevers (2021–2023).
Dermot Crowley is an Irish stage, film and television actor.
The Night Alive is a 2013 stage play by Conor McPherson which won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play 2013–14 The play premiered in London in 2013.
Girl from the North Country is a musical with a book by Conor McPherson and songs with music and lyrics by Bob Dylan. It is the second show to use Dylan's music after Twyla Tharp's The Times They Are a-Changin'.
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