Molly Rosa Houlahan

Play House

by Alexa Derman '23 MFA

Directed by Molly Houlahan '23 MFA

Leeds Theater, Winter 2023

Jo and Mona are married, Jo and Mona live in a beautiful house, Jo and Mona have wonderful friends visiting for the weekend, Jo and Mona don’t know about the two Teen Things lurking in the shadows, waiting, waiting… A queer horror play about freaky deer, performing adulthood, pre-prom rituals, and the violent pleasures of Kitchen-Aid stand-mixers.

Mr. Burns: A Post Electric Play

MR BURNS, A POST-ELECTRIC PLAY

By Anne Washburn

Music and Lyrics by Michael Friedman

Directed by Molly Houlahan

A paean to live theater, resilience, and Bart Simpson through the ages

After the collapse of civilization and sans electricity, a group of survivors share a campfire and begin to rehash the plot of The Simpsons episode “Cape Feare” entirely from memory. What follows over the decades that ensue is an exploration of future generations’ inevitable decay through the transformation of pop culture into ritual. This imaginative dark comedy propels us forward nearly a century, following a new civilization stumbling into its future. Mr. Burns is an animated exploration of how the pop culture of one era might evolve into the mythology of another.

Collective Rage

COLLECTIVE RAGE: A PLAY IN FIVE BETTIES

By Jen Silverman

Directed by Molly Houlahan

Brown/Trinity Rep, 2022

A queer and occasionally hazardous exploration

Betty is lonely; Betty is rich; Betty’s busy working on her truck; Betty wants to talk about love, but Betty needs to hit something. And Betty keeps using a small hand mirror to stare into parts of herself she’s never examined. Five people, all named Betty, collide at the intersection of anger, sex, and the “thea-tah.” Investigating why we do “thea-tah” at all, this chaotic comedy centers all-consuming self-realization and the extreme tenderness of the queer and rageful heart.

I’ll be in my Hanukkah palace

I’ll Be In My Hanukkah Palace
By Alexa Derman

Ant Fest at Ars Nova
New York, New York
Summer 2022

Five Jewish nine-year-olds LARP Christianity! Watch as they: role-play heterosexual marriage, don flame-throwing mech suits, stab each other to facilitate animal reincarnation and try to cross themselves. I’ll be in my Hanukkah Palace is a feverish excursion back into the weirdo dreamscape of queer Jewish childhood.

Photo Credit: Danny Bristoll

R+J

Presented by Hypokrit Theatre Company
In Co-Production with Access Theater

R + J is set in a not-too-distant future in a society that has been purged of cisgender men. It’s 25 years past the extermination of the male sex and the government is still relying on martial law for order amongst the factions. The Montagues, the militaristic warmongers who executed the extermination, and The Capulets, the controllers of information and media, fight to regain dominance against the tightening grip of the Sovereign State. In this world of turmoil, the heirs of each faction stumble upon each other and fall in unexpected, passionate love.

Molly Houlahan’s R + J examines what happens when a new society relies upon the patriarchal structures of the past. Can a better world truly be reimagined anew if it relies on old systems of power, money, and love? Houlahan uses Romeo and Juliet to explore mainstream feminism and those who are in danger of being left behind in its wake.

Scorched

Book/Lyrics: Molly Houlahan

Music/Lyrics: Benji Goldsmith

Johnathan Cullum Theater at American Theater for Actors

Araca Project, 2016

In an impossibly perfect kingdom, Princess and Prince encounter something wholly unfamiliar on the eve of their wedding: doubt. When the world as they know it goes up in smoke, Princess and Prince, King and Queen, dragons and witches are left to struggle with how and what to rebuild from the ashes.

Created by Benji Goldsmith, Molly Houlahan, and Yuvika Tolani, SCORCHED is a whimsical examination of the stories we tell and how they shape us.

The Winter's Tale

The Winter’s Tale by William Shakespeare
Directed by Molly Houlahan
Fall 2021 - Pell Chaffee Performance Center - Brown/Trinity Rep M.F.A.
Providence, RI

In this tale of betrayal, love, magic, and forgiveness - we follow this story over two decades as a jealous sovereign must deal with the repercussions of her actions. The monarch of rigid Sicilia, Leontes, leaves her own life in a state of utter ruin after a fit of unfounded jealousy: a wife falsely accused, a dear friend betrayed, a newborn baby lost to a treacherous rocky coast, a nation in ashes. This story sweeps across frigid oceans, tender countryside budded with blossoms, and the unforgiving sands of time. Brimming with lost princes, unexplainable magic, and one very hungry bear… Only Time will tell if healing and redemption is possible for a nation, a family, and the soul of a monarch.

The Paper Bag Princess

Book/Lyrics by Molly Houlahan

Music/Lyrics by Benji Goldsmith

Whitney Theater, New Haven, CT

The Skriker

The Skriker by Caryl Churchill

Directed by Molly Houlahan

Spring 2021 - Pell Chaffee Performance Center - Brown/Trinity Rep M.F.A.

Providence, RI

The Skriker, an ageless shapeshifter, is dropped into the middle of 1990s London. There, they begin to voraciously haunt two young women, Lily who is pregnant and Josie who is suspected of killing her child. Neither innocence nor shrewdness is effective against the ubiquitous Skriker as they appear in forms ranging from a petulant child, to lover, to couch, to drunk barfly. Skriker befriends, manipulates, seduces, and entraps these two young women... dragging them down into the horrible and wonderful fairy realm. Reality clouds as the truth muddles amidst the mutations. The young women’s love is put to the test. Blending naturalism, horror, and magical realism - Skriker is a startling fantasy of loss, love, revenge, and magic.

Gospel of the Marys

What if everything, all we know as gospel, is built on one desperate lie?

Three of Cups Theatre Collective presents a Furnace Festival selection, GOSPEL OF THE MARYS. Written and directed by Molly Houlahan, this new piece is a bold exploration of the mother Mary as a powerful young woman entangled by stories woven around her, and the enduring effects of her choices. This piece sifted through the lost details of Mary's story in a staged workshop production.