Talene Monahon is an American actress and playwright.

Childhood and education

Monahon grew up in

Belmont, Massachusetts Belmont is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts. It is a western suburb of Boston, Massachusetts, United States; and is part of the Greater Boston metropolitan area. At the time of the 2020 U.S. Census, the town's population stood at 27,295 ...

. She is a 2013 graduate of

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...

. Monahon was a child actor in regional and amateur productions in the Boston area.

''How to Load a Musket''

''How to Load a Musket'', Monahon's play about

historical reenactment Historical reenactment (or re-enactment) is an educational entertainment, educational or entertainment activity in which mainly amateur hobbyists and history enthusiasts dress in historic uniforms or costumes and follow a plan to recreate aspect ...

, was produced as a staged reading at the

Cape Cod Theatre Project The Cape Cod Theatre Project is a nonprofit organization founded in 1995 by actors Andrew Polk and Jim Bracchitta, with the mission of collaborating with playwrights, actors, directors, and the public in developing new American plays. The perform ...

in 2017, and had its premier production at Manhattan's

59E59 Theaters 59E59 Theaters is a curated rental venue located in New York City that consists of three theater spaces or stages. It shows both off-Broadway (in Theater A) and off-off-Broadway plays (in Theaters B and C). The complex is owned and operated by ...

in January 2020. Monahon began researching

in 2015, first interviewing Revolutionary War reenacters in Massachusetts and New York, then interviewing

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

reenacters and performance artist

Dread Scott Scott Tyler (born 1965), known professionally as Dread Scott, is an American artist whose works, often participatory in nature, focus on the experience of African Americans in the contemporary United States. His first major work, ''What Is the P ...

, who produced a 2017 reenactment of the 1811 German Coast uprising. Monahon's play is created entirely from the words of her politically, ethnically and socioeconomically diverse interviewees, whose views of their hobby evolve over the years during which the interviews took place.

Acting

Monahon has performed on stage in New York and other cities. ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' theater critic Laura Collins-Hughes describes Monahon as playing Blanche Sartorious in

George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...

's '' Widower's Houses'' "with such take-no-prisoners ferocity that she awakened the sleeping man in front of me during a fight scene."

Terry Teachout Terrance Alan Teachout (February 6, 1956 – January 13, 2022) was an American author, critic, biographer, playwright, stage director, and librettist. He was the drama critic of ''The Wall Street Journal'', the critic-at-large of ''Commentary'' ...

, theater critic for the ''

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'', described Monahon's as playing Blanche as, "a startlingly predatory vampire," in a production of Shaw's work that was "as good as it gets." Monahon has a handful of television acting credits, most recently appearing as Assistant District Attorney Conway in the

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

legal drama ''

Bull A bull is an intact (i.e., not castrated) adult male of the species ''Bos taurus'' (cattle). More muscular and aggressive than the females of the same species (i.e., cows), bulls have long been an important symbol in many religions, includin ...

''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Monahon, Talene Living people 21st-century American dramatists and playwrights American stage actresses People from Belmont, Massachusetts Dartmouth College alumni Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American actresses 21st-century American women writers American women dramatists and playwrights Writers from Massachusetts Actresses from Massachusetts American television actresses