Dave Malloy (born January 4, 1976) is an American composer, playwright, lyricist, and actor. He has written several theatrical works, often based on classic works of literature. They include ''

Moby-Dick ''Moby-Dick; or, The Whale'' is an 1851 novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is the sailor Ishmael (Moby-Dick), Ishmael's narrative of the obsessive quest of Captain Ahab, Ahab, captain of the whaler, whaling ship ''Pequod (Moby- ...

'', an adaptation of

Herman Melville Herman Melville (Name change, born Melvill; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American people, American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance (literature), American Renaissance period. Among his bes ...

's classic novel; ''

Octet Octet may refer to: Music * Octet (music), ensemble consisting of eight instruments or voices, or composition written for such an ensemble ** String octet, a piece of music written for eight string instruments *** Octet (Mendelssohn), 1825 compos ...

'', a chamber choir musical about internet addiction; '' Preludes,'' a musical fantasia set in the mind of romantic composer

Sergei Rachmaninoff Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff; in Russian pre-revolutionary script. (28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one o ...

; ''

Ghost Quartet ''Ghost Quartet'' is a musical song cycle written and composed by Dave Malloy. The show is described as "a song cycle about love, death, and whiskey. A camera breaks and four friends drink in four interwoven narratives spanning seven centuries" ...

'', a song cycle about love, death, and whiskey; and the Tony Award winning ''

Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 ''Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812'' (or simply ''The Great Comet'') is a sung-through musical adaptation of a 70-page segment from Leo Tolstoy's 1869 novel ''War and Peace'' written by composer/lyricist Dave Malloy and directed by Rac ...

,'' an electropop opera based on ''

War and Peace ''War and Peace'' (russian: Война и мир, translit=Voyna i mir; pre-reform Russian: ; ) is a literary work by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy that mixes fictional narrative with chapters on history and philosophy. It was first published ...

''.

Career

Malloy grew up in

Lakewood, Ohio Lakewood is a city in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States, on the southern shore of Lake Erie. Established in 1889, it is one of Cleveland's historical streetcar suburbs and part of the Greater Cleveland, Greater Clevelan ...

and studied music composition and English literature at

Ohio University Ohio University is a Public university, public research university in Athens, Ohio. The first university chartered by an Act of Congress and the first to be chartered in Ohio, the university was chartered in 1787 by the Congress of the Confeder ...

. He began making theater in San Francisco in 2000. Early work included pieces with

Banana Bag & Bodice Banana Bag & Bodice is a Brooklyn-based ensemble theatre company that creates original plays with a strong emphasis on text, music and design. They have performed at the Ontological-Hysteric Theater, PS 122, The Brick Theater, Abrons Arts Center, ...

, for whom he has been the composer since 2002. In 2008 he composed music for ''Beowulf – A Thousand Years of Baggage'', a

SongPlay written by Jason Craig and commissioned by the

Shotgun Players The Shotgun Players is a California East Bay regional theatre group located in Berkeley, California. It runs 6 to 7 productions per season. Its main stage is the Ashby Stage located in the Lorin District near the Ashby BART station. About The ...

in Berkeley, California. ''Beowulf'' received the 2008 Glickman Award and a 2011 Edinburgh Herald Angel, and has played a number of venues and festivals, including Berkeley Repertory's Roda Theatre, ART's Club Oberon,

Joe's Pub Joe's Pub, one of the six performance spaces within The Public Theater, is a music venue and restaurant that hosts live performances across genres and arts, ranging from cabaret to modern dance to world music. It is located at 425 Lafayette St ...

, and festivals in England, Ireland, Scotland and Australia. After ''Beowulf'', he co-created and performed in ''Three Pianos'', a drunken romp through

Schubert Franz Peter Schubert (; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast ''oeuvre'', including more than 600 secular vocal wor ...

's "

Winterreise ''Winterreise'' (, ''Winter Journey'') is a song cycle for voice and piano by Franz Schubert ( D. 911, published as Op. 89 in 1828), a setting of 24 poems by German poet Wilhelm Müller. It is the second of Schubert's two song cycles on Müller' ...

" (with Rick Burkhardt and

Alec Duffy Alec Duffy is an Obie Award winning writer and director, and the Artistic Director of Hoi Polloi and JACK, a performing arts space in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. Career Duffy has written and directed several shows with his theater company, Hoi Polloi ...

, directed by

Rachel Chavkin Rachel Chavkin (; born July 20, 1980) is an American stage director best known for directing the musicals '' Natasha, Pierre, & The Great Comet of 1812'' and '' Hadestown,'' receiving nominations for a Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical ...

) that premiered in 2010 at the

Ontological-Hysteric Theater Richard Foreman (born June 10, 1937 in New York City) is an American avant-garde playwright and the founder of the Ontological-Hysteric Theater. Achievements and awards Foreman has written, directed and designed over fifty of his own plays, b ...

, winning a Special Citation

Obie Award The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards originally given by ''The Village Voice'' newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City. In September 2014, the awards were jointly presented and administered with the A ...

, and had runs at

New York Theatre Workshop __NOTOC__ New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW) is an Off-Broadway theatre noted for its productions of new works. Located at 79 4th Street (Manhattan), East 4th Street between Second Avenue (Manhattan), Second Avenue and Bowery in the East Village, ...

and

American Repertory Theater The American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) is a professional not-for-profit theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1979 by Robert Brustein, the A.R.T. is known for its commitment to new American plays and music–theater explorations; to ne ...

. His next work was ''Beardo,'' a Russian indie rock musical based on the life of

Rasputin Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin (; rus, links=no, Григорий Ефимович Распутин ; – ) was a Russian mystic and self-proclaimed holy man who befriended the family of Nicholas II, the last Emperor of Russia, thus ga ...

, which Malloy wrote with ''Beowulf'' collaborator Jason Craig. It played in 2011 in San Francisco and had its New York premiere in February 2017 in a production by Pipeline Theater Company. For ''

'', Malloy was the composer, lyricist, orchestrator, music director and performer in the role of

Pierre Bezukhov Count Pyotr "Pierre" Kirillovich Bezukhov (; russian: Пьер Безу́хов, Пётр Кири́ллович Безу́хов) is the fictional protagonist of Leo Tolstoy's 1869 novel ''War and Peace''. He is the favourite out of several illeg ...

. ''Comet'' was commissioned by Ars Nova and premiered there in October 2012, directed by Chavkin; in May 2012 the show transferred to

off-Broadway An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer tha ...

playing in Kazino, a tent custom-built for the piece, first erected in the Meatpacking District and then in Times Square. In December 2015 the show played a pre-Broadway run at the

in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The show has won an

, the 2013 Richard Rodgers Award for Musical Theater, the Off Broadway Alliance's Best New Musical Award, three

Elliot Norton Awards The Elliot Norton Awards are presented annually to honor the best achievements in Boston-area theater. The genesis of the awards was the Norton Medal, which was first awarded in 1983 and was named after long-time theater critic Elliot Norton (1903 ...

, eight

IRNE Awards The IRNE Awards are presented annually by the Independent Reviewers of New England (IRNE) to honor the best achievements in Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealt ...

, eleven

Lucille Lortel Awards The Lucille Lortel Awards recognize excellence in New York Off-Broadway theatre. The Awards are named for Lucille Lortel, an actress and theater producer, and have been awarded since 1986. They are produced by the League of Off-Broadway Theatre ...

nominations (winning three), five

Drama Desk The Drama Desk Award is an annual prize recognizing excellence in New York theatre. First bestowed in 1955 as the Vernon Rice Award, the prize initially honored Off-Broadway productions, as well as Off-off-Broadway, and those in the vicinity. Fol ...

nominations, and two

Drama League Award The Drama League Awards, created in 1922, honor distinguished productions and performances both on Broadway and Off-Broadway, in addition to recognizing exemplary career achievements in theatre, musical theatre, and directing. Each May, the awards ...

nominations. It opened on Broadway at the

Imperial Theatre The Imperial Theatre is a Broadway theater at 249 West 45th Street (George Abbott Way) in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Opened in 1923, the Imperial Theatre was designed by Herbert J. Krapp and was constructed fo ...

in October 2016 with

Josh Groban Joshua Winslow Groban (born February 27, 1981) is an American singer, songwriter, and actor. His first four solo albums have been certified multi-platinum, and he was charted in 2007 as the number-one best selling artist in the United States, wi ...

as Pierre. Malloy reprised his role as Pierre multiple times throughout the run, and was the final Broadway Pierre. In 2022, the show was staged at Malloy's alma mater, Ohio University, for the first time following its departure from Broadway. ''

'' opened in October 2014 at the Bushwick Starr. After an extended sold out run, the piece transferred to the McKittrick Hotel, home of '' Sleep No More'', and has since played in a number of cities, including Edinburgh, San Francisco, and Cambridge, where it won an

Elliot Norton Award The Elliot Norton Awards are presented annually to honor the best achievements in Boston-area theater. The genesis of the awards was the Norton Medal, which was first awarded in 1983 and was named after long-time theater critic Elliot Norton (1903 ...

. The piece is a staged concept album, about love, death, and whiskey. This was followed by a stop at Youth Musical Theatre Company where he used to work as a pianist for their youth productions. He worked with playwright Krista Knight to write "Don't Stop Me: A New Musical", a "danceathon to the death" centered on the high school experience. While the show was in performances, his next musical, '' Preludes'', a piece about

Rachmaninoff Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff; in Russian pre-revolutionary script. (28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one o ...

and hypnosis, premiered at

Lincoln Center Theater The Vivian Beaumont Theater is a Broadway theater in the Lincoln Center complex at 150 West 65th Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Operated by the nonprofit Lincoln Center Theater (LCT), the Beaumont is the only Broad ...

in June 2015. ''

'', a

chamber choir A chamber choir is a small or medium-sized choir of roughly 8 to 40 singers (occasionally called 'chamber singers'), typically singing classical or religious music in a concert setting. (This is distinct from e.g. a church choir, which sings in rel ...

musical written by Malloy and directed by Annie Tippe, ran at the

Signature Theatre Company Signature Theatre Company is an American theatre based in Manhattan, New York. It was founded in 1991 by James Houghton and is now led by Artistic Director Paige Evans. Signature is known for their season-long focus on one artist's work. It has be ...

Residency 5 Theatre in New York City from April 30 to June 30, 2019. The show features an eight-part

a cappella ''A cappella'' (, also , ; ) music is a performance by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Ren ...

chamber choir and "explores addiction and nihilism within the messy context of 21st century technology" premiered in a limited run at the

in New York City. It is the first part of his Signature Residency, which will include three shows over the course of five years. ''

'', a musical based on

's ''

'' with book, music, lyrics, and orchestrations by Malloy and directed by

, ran at the

from December 3, 2019, to January 12, 2020. The middle section of the show, titled ''Moby Dick, Part III: The Ballad of Pip'' was previewed at

back in March 2014. Malloy lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Theater works

Musicals

*''Gogol'' (2001) (composer/performer; written by Jason Craig and Sean Owens; directed by Meredith Eldred) *''Sandwich'' (2003) (co-creator, with

) *''Clown Bible'' (2007) (composer/lyricist/Job/Judas; directed by Maya Gurantz) *''Beowulf – A Thousand Years of Baggage'' (2008) (composer/musical director/Hrothgar; with

) *''Haarlem Berlin'' (2009) (composer; written by Talaya Delaney, directed by

) *''Three Pianos'' (2010) (co-creator/performer/sound & video designer; with Rick Burkhardt and

, directed by

) *''Beardo'' (2011) (composer; written by Jason Craig, directed by Patrick Dooley) *''

'' (2012) (composer/librettist/orchestrator/Pierre; directed by

) *''Black Wizard / Blue Wizard'' (2013) (co-creator/composer/Black Wizard; with Eliza Bent, directed by Dan Safer) *''

'' (2014) (composer/writer/performer, with Brent Arnold,

Gelsey Bell Gelsey Bell is an American singer, songwriter, and actress, best known for her experimental music and her portrayal of Mary in the 2016 Broadway musical '' Natasha, Pierre, & the Great Comet of 1812.'' Early life and education Bell was raised i ...

and

Brittain Ashford Brittain Ashford is an American actress, singer and songwriter best known for portraying Sonya Rostova in the 2016 Broadway musical ''Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812'', as well as fronting the band Prairie Empire. Early life and educa ...

, directed by Annie Tippe) *'' Preludes'' (2015) (composer/writer; directed by

) *''Don't Stop Me'' (2015) (composer/co-lyricist; written by Krista Knight; directed by Jennifer Boesing) *''Little Bunny Foo Foo'' (2018) (composer; written by

Anne Washburn Anne Washburn is an American playwright. Life Washburn graduated from Reed College and from New York University, with an M.F.A. Her plays have been produced in New York City by Cherry Lane Theatre, Clubbed Thumb, The Civilians, Vineyard Theatre, ...

, directed by Les Waters) *''

'' (2019) (composer/writer; directed by Annie Tippe) * ''Moby-Dick'' (2019) (composer/writer; directed by

)

Other theater works

*''Gulag Ha Ha'' (2002) (composer/sound designer/Old Timer; with

) *''in3'' (2003) (composer/performer; written by j. ries and Jason Craig; directed by Meredith Eldred) *''The Sewers'' (2005) (composer/sound designer; with

) *''Dysphoria'' (2007) (composer/sound designer; written & directed by

) *''Space//Space'' (2009) (composer/sound designer; with

) *''Five Days in March'' (2010) (composer; written by

Toshiki Okada is a Japanese playwright, theater director, novelist, and founder of the theatrical company chelfitsch. He is known for "his use of hyper-colloquial Japanese and his unique choreography."Program for ''Five Days in March'', On the Boards (Seattle ...

, directed by Dan Safer) *''The Small'' (2010) (composer/Walt) (written by

, directed by Les Waters) *''

Murder in the Cathedral ''Murder in the Cathedral'' is a verse drama by T. S. Eliot, first performed in 1935, that portrays the assassination of Archbishop Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral during the reign of Henry II in 1170. Eliot drew heavily on the writin ...

'' (2010) (composer; written by

T.S. Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National B ...

, directed by

) *''All Hands'' (2012) (composer/sound designer; written by Robert Quillen Camp, directed by

) *''LongYarn'' (2016) (composer/sound designer; with

)

Recordings

In addition to the full cast recordings listed below, rough recordings and demos to most of Malloy's shows can be found on his website. Official video recordings of ''Ghost Quartet'', ''Beardo'', and ''Beowulf'' have also been released online. A

Kickstarter Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, ...

was launched to fund the original cast recording of ''Octet'' on June 19, 2019, where it was fully funded in one day. The album was released digitally on November 15, 2019.

Honors and awards

He is the winner of three

OBIE Awards The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards originally given by ''The Village Voice'' newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City. In September 2014, the awards were jointly presented and administered with the A ...

, a

Lucille Lortel Award The Lucille Lortel Awards recognize excellence in New York Off-Broadway theatre. The Awards are named for Lucille Lortel, an actress and theater producer, and have been awarded since 1986. They are produced by the League of Off-Broadway Theatre ...

, a

Drama Desk Award The Drama Desk Award is an annual prize recognizing excellence in New York theatre. First bestowed in 1955 as the Vernon Rice Award, the prize initially honored Off-Broadway productions, as well as Off-off-Broadway, and those in the vicinity. Fo ...

, a Richard Rodgers Award, Glickman Award, ASCAP New Horizons Award,

Jonathan Larson Jonathan David Larson (February 4, 1960 – January 25, 1996) was an American composer, lyricist and playwright most famous for writing the musicals ''Rent'' and '' Tick, Tick... Boom!'', which explored the social issues of multiculturalism, ...

Grant, and New Music USA Grant, a recipient of the 2009 NEA/TCG Career Development Program for Theatre Directors and Designers, and the 2011 Composer-in-Residence at Ars Nova. In 2017, Malloy was the recipient of Smithsonian Magazine's American Ingenuity Award for History.

References

External links

davemalloy.com
Official website {{DEFAULTSORT:Malloy, Dave American musical theatre composers American musical theatre lyricists Broadway composers and lyricists Musicians from New York City Living people Songwriters from New York (state) Musicians from Cleveland People from Lakewood, Ohio 1976 births