Marie Mullen

Marie Mullen is an Irish actress born in 1953 in Drumfin, in the south of County Sligo. She made her Broadway appearances between 1998 and 2022, earning a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play in 1998, a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble Performance in 2009, and a Theatre World Special Award in 1998.

Mullen's connection to theatre began during her secondary school years, when she first aspired to become an actor. She attended NUI Galway, where she studied archaeology and crossed paths with Garry Hynes and Mick Lally. Hynes recalls first meeting Mullen at Dramsoc at UCG in 1971, when both were 17, and casting her in The Loves of Cass Maguire. The three went on to co-found the Druid Theatre Company, based in Galway, Ireland, with which Mullen has maintained a long and central association.

Among her early Druid credits, Mullen appeared in Conversations on a Homecoming in 1985 and originated the role of Mary in Tom Murphy's Bailegangaire. She also originated the role of Maureen in Martin McDonagh's The Beauty Queen of Leenane in 1996, before bringing that performance to Broadway in 1998, where it earned her the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. In 2014, Mullen returned to Bailegangaire in a Druid production at the Town Hall Theatre in Galway, this time playing the role of Mommo — the same character she had portrayed thirty years earlier as Mary. That same year she appeared in Tom Murphy's Brigit, also presented by Druid, again as Mommo.

In 2006, Mullen took part in DruidSynge, a Druid Theatre Company production presenting the complete plays of John Millington Synge performed in a single day, in which she played roles in five of the six plays. The following year she performed alongside James Cromwell in the Druid production of Long Day's Journey into Night. In December 2008, she appeared Off-Broadway in The Cripple of Inishmaan, a co-production of the Druid Theatre Company and the Atlantic Theatre Company, for which she received the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble Performance in 2009. Mullen appeared in DruidShakespeare at the Lincoln Center Festival in 2015, directed by Garry Hynes, playing what reviewers described as a varied assortment of roles. Her second Broadway credit, The Music Master, came in 2022, in which she played Mrs. Paroo in a revival of The Music Man.

Mullen's film work includes a role as Mrs. Foley in the 1994 film Circle of Friends and a role as Mickey's Mom in the 1991 film Hear My Song.

In addition to her performance awards, Mullen received the 2012 Alumni Award for arts, social sciences and Celtic studies from NUI Galway, and in February 2013 was given the Special Tribute Award at the Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards in recognition of her contribution to Irish theatre. NUI Galway conferred upon her an honorary Doctorate of Arts in June 2016. In 2018, the Druid Theatre Company established the Marie Mullen Bursary in her honor, open to female dramaturgs, directors, and designers.

Mullen married Irish actor Seán McGinley in 1990, having first met him in 1977. They have two children. McGinley has also been associated with the Druid Theatre Company on multiple occasions.