Voices Carry: A Celebration of Irish Women Writing

Selected and Arranged by Playwright Honor Molloy and Directed by Kira Simring, Honor Molloy and Actors Gina Costigan and Angel Desai Will Perform Readings of Works by Leland Bardwell, Maeve Brennan, Elizabeth Bowen, Anne Enright, Lucy Grealy, Maura Laverty, Claire McAllister, Gina Moxley and Edna O'Brien.

Irish Arts Center, which projects a dynamic image of Ireland and Irish America for the 21st century, is pleased to present Voices Carry: A Celebration of Women Writing, December 6. Organized by author and playwright Honor Molloy and directed by Kira Simring, the event features Ms. Molloy and actors Gina Costigan and Angel Desai in dramatic readings of 20th Century works spanning a variety of forms, including memoir, novels, poetry, drama, and radio. The featured texts-by renowned contemporary authors Anne Enright and Edna O'Brien; playwright Gina Moxley; and late writers including Leland Bardwell, Maeve Brennan, Elizabeth Bowen, Lucy Grealy, Maura Laverty, and Claire McAllister-explore the humor, depth, and resilience of Irish and Irish American women.

Voices Carry will begin at 7:30pm. Tickets, $12 ($10 for IAC members), can be purchased by visiting irishartscenter.org or calling the IAC box office at 866.811.4111. Irish Arts Center is located at 553 West 51st Street.

Dramatist Honor Molloy (Organizer) frequently conceives and produces literary evenings such as Alternative Bloomsday, or Dealer's Joyce (Dixon Place); Beckett Out Loud (An Beal Bocht, Brooklyn Public Library); Savage Kids of Dublintown (Dixon Place, Brooklyn Public Library); Savage Dublin (Old Town Bar); and with Matthew Maw - The Old Lady Says No! and What They Did in Dublin, both at Gluckskman Ireland House. A graduate of Paula Vogel's playwriting workshop at Brown University, Molloy has received support from the National Endowment for the Arts, three New York Foundation for the Arts fellowships, a Pew Fellowship in the Arts and a fellowship from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard. Simon & Schuster Audio / Gemma Media published her autobiographical novel Smarty Girl - Dublin Savage in 2012. Molloy's work And in My Heart premiered at the 2016 International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival. Her Crackskull Row (New York Times Critic's Pick), produced by the cell, was a highlight of this year's Origin's 1st Irish Theatre Festival.

Kira Simring (Director) has been the Artistic Director of Nancy Manocherian's the cell-an incubator for new theatrical works in the heart of New York City-since its inception in 2006. Simring has worked closely with playwrights, composers and performance artists to develop and realize their work. Her directing credits include the premieres of Crackskull Row by Honor Molloy (New York Times Critic's Pick); Hard Times: An American Musical, by Larry Kirwan (New York Times Critic's Pick); and The McGowan Trilogy, by Seamus Scanlon(New York and UK Premieres). Simring's work has been seen at The New Theatre Row Theatres, NYU Skirball Center, The Thalia Theatre at Symphony Space, The Connecticut Grand Opera, CenterStage in Baltimore and The Kino-Theatre outside of London. She has received a Shubert Fellowship and is a three-time Origin's 1st Irish Theatre Festival award-winner for Best Director. She earned her BA in Anthropology from Smith College and her MFA from The New School for Drama.

Gina Costigan is an Irish theater and film actress from Dublin, Ireland. Her most recent onstage role in New York was this September in Honor Molloy's Crackskull Row at the Workshop Theater, as part of the 9th Annual Origin's 1st Irish Theatre Festival. Costigan's onscreen roles include Ireland's "Fair City" and films Becoming Jane (2007), Veronica Guerin (2003) and The Front Line (2006). She is a graduate of Queen's University Belfast.

Angel Desai has appeared in Frankie and Johnny (Berkshire Theater Festival), Ernest Shackleton Loves Me (George St. Playhouse) and The Winter's Tale and Double Indemnity (Old Globe). On Broadway, she appeared in Company (2007). She has worked with Off-Broadway companies including CSC, Playwrights Horizons, NYTW, Women's Project, MCC and Ma-Yi. Regional credits include Yale Repertory, Long Wharf, Arena Stage, McCarter Theater, Cincinnati Playhouse, Cleveland Playhouse and others. Desai's recent TV appearances include "Chicago Med," "Minority Report," "Madam Secretary," "Major Crimes," "Forever," "Elementary," "Nurse Jackie" and "Being Mary Jane." Her film credits include The Clique, The War Within, Heights, Black Knight and Robot Stories. Desai is also Lunt-Fontaine Fellow at Ten Chimneys and earned her MFA in acting from NYU.

About Irish Arts Center

Founded in 1972, Irish Arts Center is a New York-based arts and cultural center dedicated to projecting a dynamic image of Ireland and Irish America for the 21st century, building community with artists and audiences of all backgrounds, forging and strengthening cross-cultural partnerships, and preserving the evolving stories and traditions of Irish culture for generations to come. Our multi-disciplinary programming is centered around three core areas: Performance - including live music, dance, theatre, film, literature, and the humanities; Exhibition - including visual arts presentations and cultural exhibitions that tell the evolving Irish story; and Education - with dozens of classes per week in Irish language, history, music, and dance.

Located in New York City, a global capital of arts and culture, Irish Arts Center serves as a dynamic platform for top emerging and established artists. Irish Arts Center is currently developing plans to construct a new facility to serve our multi-disciplinary program and will be the strongest possible gateway for artists to reach into our cultural community and nourish their work, to connect with our partner institutions who help them innovate, and to become visible in the New York City media market which enhances their ability to achieve U.S and further international success.

The New Irish Arts Center will contain a purpose-built, state-of-the-art contemporary performance space for music, dance and theatre seating up to 160; industry-standard back of house and support facilities to allow artists to achieve their vision; a second, intimate performance space - the renovated historic Irish Arts Center theatre - optimized for live music, literature, film, talks, large classes and special events; classrooms and studio space for community education programs in Irish music, dance, language, history, and the humanities, and for master classes and workshops by visiting and resident artists; technology capability to project the Irish Arts Center experience on the digital platform; an avenue-facing café lobby to engage with the neighborhood and provide a social setting for conversation and interaction between artists and audiences; a beautiful new courtyard entrance on 51st Street where the historic Irish Arts Center building and the new facility meet.

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