Kate Mulley is an internationally acclaimed playwright, librettist/lyricist, producer, dramaturg and collage artist whose work explores gender, power, place and desire through a feminist, and often historical, lens. Her work has been developed and performed on four continents and online by the cell theatre, Home of the Arts, Balcony Arts, The Tank, Hayes Theatre Company, Luna Stage, Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center, Dixon Place, The Flea, Theatre503 and the Soho Theatre, among others.

Her musical Razorhurst, written with composer Andy Peterson, was commissioned by and had its world premiere at Luna Stage. Razorhurst, which musicalizes the lives of Sydney gang leaders Kate Leigh and Tilly Devine, received its Australian premiere at the Hayes Theatre in Sydney. Outlaw, a musical about the Australian outlaw Ned Kelly written with Andy Peterson, has been developed at Catwalk Art Residency, FORGE Fuel, and Barn Arts Collective and performed at Dixon Place and Dartmouth College. Female Complaints, a musical about Inez Burns, a pre-Roe San Francisco abortionist, written with Tina deVaron, has been developed at Catwalk Art Residency, Soaring Gardens Artist Retreat and VoxLab at Dartmouth College. Kate is also the co-librettist of In the Light with Nathan Wright, with music & lyrics by Michael Mott.

Her play The Tutor, originally produced in the New York International Fringe Festival, has been translated into Mandarin and performed at the Shanghai Theatre Academy and the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre and published in Mandarin.

Strange Bare Facts, Kate’s trilogy about the intersection of war, medicine and gender includes Grey Lady, Hither Ditch and The Next War which have been developed at Columbia, Montclair State University, NYU, Sewanee Writers’ Conference and VoxFest at Dartmouth College.

Kate has worked for Columbia University School of the Arts, Playscripts, Inc., Nick Hern Books, Soho Theatre and New York Theatre Workshop and has published headlines in The Onion. She is the editor of Dramaturgy of Sex on Stage in Contemporary Theatre (Routledge).

Kate has been an Artist-in-Residence at Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Soaring Gardens Artist Retreat, Corsicana Artist and Writer Residency and Arteles Creative Center (Finland), a Guest Artist at Montclair State University, a Playwriting Fellow at Shanghai Theatre Academy and a Tennessee Williams Scholar at the Sewanee Writers Conference. She has also been a finalist for the Juilliard Playwriting Fellowship, SPACE on Ryder Farm, Polyphone Festival of New and Emerging Musicals, WP Producers Lab and the Columbia@Roundabout New Play Reading Series and a semi-finalist for the O’Neill, Princess Grace, Shakespeare’s New Contemporaries, ATHE Playwriting Award, the Bechdel Project Room of One’s Own residency and Bay Area Playwrights Festival. She graduated from Dartmouth College with a degree in Theater and History, received an MA in Writing for Performance at Goldsmiths College, London, and an MFA in Playwriting from Columbia University. Kate is a writing mentor with Girls Write Now and the PEN Prison Writing mentorship program and was awarded the 2023 PEN America/L’Engle Rahman Prize for Mentorship. She is a founding member of Vox Theater and proud member of the Dramatists Guild and the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas. Originally from Boston, Kate lives in New York.

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Artistic Statement

I am a playwright, lyricist, librettist, dramaturg, producer and collage artist whose work explores gender, power, place and desire through a feminist, and often historical, lens. I make and champion theatre.

My lived experience—and my studies as a historian and dramaturg—have taught me that there are no absolutes, that change is constant, and that life is not a three-act structure. I want my work to be and begin a conversation. No matter the project, I perform rigorous research. I consult multiple sources. I embrace collaboration and—when the spirit moves—divination. I often use primary sources as found text in my historical work to pitch the audience into the syntax of another time and place. 

I write about desire and memory and how they relate to patriarchal structures and expectations. I write about women pushing against the confines of their circumstances. Whether they are Australian gang leaders in the Sydney underworld, a skilled abortionist making her way to the top of San Francisco society or a protest artist in contemporary Rome, these women push beyond the curtain of what society expects of them and revel in the freedom and then await, and experience, the fallout. My work is theatrical, yet subtle; welcoming an engaged and intelligent audience, without shying away from sensual or lowbrow moments.

My work always begins with a question and a provocation, to myself and my collaborators, and to a reader or audience member. The end, however, rarely provides an answer.