Marina Carr

Marina Carr was born on November 17, 1964 in Dublin, Ireland. Artistry ran in her family; her mother wrote Irish poetry and her father was a playwright and a composer. She spent her childhood in County Offaly writing and performing violent, dramatic plays with her siblings in the shed-turned-theatre in their backyard. Carr went on to study English and philosophy at University College Dublin. After graduating, she wrote her first play, Ariel (2002), which premiered at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. Since her debut, she has written more than 30 plays, many of which are well-known.

Almost all of her works have similar character dynamics. There is usually an idealized mother figure who has either died or left, a present motherly figure who is callous and distant, and a complicated family dynamic. They explore how death affects life, how death reveals motivations, and how death impacts family. They are often based on Greek mythology and contain elements of Irish mythology or history. One of her most famous plays, By the Bog of Cats (2004), for example, is loosely based on the myth of Medea and explores issues of land ownership in the Irish Midlands.

Carr has written more Greek-oriented plays of late. Her most recent play, Hecuba (2015), a play that deals with the aftermath of the Trojan War, premiered at the Royal Shakespeare Company. Carr's masterpieces have won her many awards, including The Irish Times Playwright award and the Yale Windham Campbell Prize. She has taught at Trinity College Dublin, Villanova University, and Princeton, and is a writer-in-residence at the Abbey Theatre as well as Trinity College Dublin.