About the Play:

Outside Mullingar is a full-length dramatic romantic comedy by John Patrick Shanley. Family farms, feuds and fences have separated neighbours Rosemary and Anthony since childhood. But as the heather blooms in the Irish countryside, unexpected charms are unearthed, as they navigate the bumpy road to love. With humour and tenderness, Outside Mullingar reminds us that love, early or late, always arrives on time.

Outside Mullingar is poetic romance set outside the charming rural town of Mullingar, Ireland about neighbours stuck in the trenches of a land feud. Anthony and Rosemary grew up on adjacent farms and are now nearing mid-life crises. He has spent his entire life on a cattle farm, a state of affairs that – due to his painful shyness – suits him well. She lives right next door, determined to have him, watching the years slip away. When Anthony’s father threatens to disinherit him, Rosemary steps into the swirling mess of long-standing family eccentricities to take her shot at love. On the brink of romantic catastrophe, they fight back despair and stubborn follies to unearth the magic of finding their hearts' true home. Their journey is heartbreaking, funny, and ultimately deeply moving. Full of dark humour and poetic prose, Outside Mullingar is a compassionate, tenderhearted portrait reminds us it's never too late to take a chance on love.

Outside Mullingar premiered in 2014 on Broadway at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, in a critically acclaimed production starring Tony winner Brian F. O'Byrne and Emmy winner Debra Messing, making her Broadway debut. The play enjoyed widespread acceptance among leading regional theatres, and is regularly performed in regional, college, and community theatre productions.

Cast: 2 female, 2 male

What people say:

"Outside Mullingar is a charmer of a play... In [Shanley's] first work set in Ireland, he lovingly tends the roots and tills the soil of his ancestry, spinning a tale suffused with melancholy humor and a deep yearning for heart, home, land, faith and a sense of belonging.... Shanley has a poet's ear for the lyrical music and twinkly humor of their dialogue." — Hollywood Reporter

"Outside Mullingar is a valentine to the wonder and weirdness of love." — New York Daily News

"Wholly diverting... Mr. Shanley's finest work since Doubt…a softhearted comedy freckled with dark reflections on the unsatisfactory nature of life and the thorns of love." — New York Times

"Deliciously funny, a twisted comedy about death and love that flirts with – and sometimes embraces – Irish cliches galore." — Vancouver Sun

"John Patrick Shanley has not written a more beautiful or loving play than Outside Mullingar." — Variety

"Here as in Moonstruck, Mr. Shanley is telling a tale of inhibition overcome by love, but he's translated it (so to speak) from Italian to Gaelic, and the results are both charming and dramatically persuasive." — Wall Street Journal

"The romantic tension is palpable and delightful." — LA Weekly

About the Playwright:

John Patrick Shanley is an American playwright, screenwriter, and director. Shanley has written some two dozen Off Broadway plays since the 1970s, but he is best known for Doubt, which won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award. He has also written extensively for TV and film, and his credits include the teleplay for Live from Baghdad and screenplays for Five Corners and Moonstruck, for which he won an Academy Award for original screenplay.