Ellen McLaughlin

Ellen McLauglin is an American playwright and actor for stage and film. Her plays include Days and Nights Within, A Narrow Bed, Infinity's House, Iphigenia and Other Daughters, Tongue of a Bird, The Trojan Women, Helen, The Persians, and Oedipus, all produced in major theatres throughout the U.S. She is the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including the Great American Play Contest, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, NEA Award, Writer's Award from the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund, the Berilla Kerr Award for Playwriting, and the NEA/TCG Theatre Residency Grant. As an actor, McLaughlin has worked on and off Broadway as well as extensively in regional theater. She is best known for having originated the part of the Angel in Tony Kushner's Angels in America, appearing in every U.S. production from its earliest workshops through its Broadway run. Other roles include The Homebody in Homebody/Kabul at Intiman Theater, Seattle; Pirate Jenny in The Threepenny Opera at Trinity Rep (Elliot Norton Award); Mrs. Alving in Ghosts at Berkeley Rep; and Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream at the McCarter and the Paper Mill Playhouse. She has taught playwriting in numerous venues, from Yale School of Drama to Princeton University. She has been teaching at Barnard College since 1995.