Marie Mullen

Marie Mullen (born 1953) is an Irish actress. She is known for co-founding the Druid Theatre Company, located in Galway, Ireland. She is also known for her performance in the 1998 production of The Beauty Queen of Leenane, for which she received a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. Career Mullen is from Drumfin, south Sligo. She said that she wanted "to try to be an actor from when I was in secondary school." Garry Hynes recalls meeting Mullen at Dramsoc at UCG in 1971, when they were both 17, and casting her in The Loves of Cass Maguire. She attended NUI Galway studying archaeology. She met Hynes and Mick Lally, and they formed the Druid Theatre Company. As a founding member of Druid Theatre Company, she has appeared in many of their productions, including Conversations on a Homecoming (1985), and played the role of "Mary" in Tom Murphy's play Bailegangaire. She also originated the role of Maureen in Martin McDonagh's The Beauty Queen of Leenane (1996). She appeared on Broadway again in The Beauty Queen of Leenane in 1998, and won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. Other productions with Druid include Brigit and The Cripple of Inishmaan. She appeared Off-Broadway in The Cripple of Inishmaan in December 2008, in a co-production of the Druid Theatre Company and the Atlantic Theatre Company. She also played the role of "Mary", and 30 years later in 2014, the role of "Mommo", in Tom Murphy's play Bailegangaire, presented by the Druid Theatre Company at the Town Hall Theatre, Galway. Critic Peter Crawley for The Irish Times wrote that with Mullen's "astonishing performance comes an amplification of her earlier character’s pain and humour..." and called her performance "transcendental." She also appeared in Tom Murphy's Brigit, presented by the Druid Theatre Company in 2014, as "Mommo", the same character who is depicted in Bailegangaire.