Mark Shanahan is a playwright, director, and actor named Playhouse Artistic Director in 2023. Part of the Playhouse artistic family since his first production in 2005, he has curated its popular Script in Hand series since 2018.
His plays have been produced throughout the United States and in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Germany, Brussels, Hungary and South Africa; his directing work spans New York, leading regional theatres and London. He wrote and directed the New York Times Critics’ Pick A Sherlock Carol, an Off-Broadway Alliance Best New Play nominee, which ran for two seasons Off-Broadway and several at London’s Marylebone Theatre, where he also directed. His highly acclaimed adaptation of Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, created with Agatha Christie Ltd., premiered at Houston’s Alley Theatre and has since been produced internationally. Other plays include A Merry Little Christmas Carol, See Monsters of the Deep and the Off-Broadway and regional comedy The Dingdong: Or, Take Me, I’m Yours! He has received an Edgar Award nomination for playwriting and Connecticut Critics Circle Award nominations for his work on Connecticut stages.
Shanahan’s directing associations include the Alley Theatre, Virginia Stage Co, George Street Playhouse, Arkansas Rep, TheatreSquared, Fulton Theatre, Weston Playhouse, Florida Rep, Orlando Shakespeare Festival, Florida Studio Theatre, Merrimack Rep, The Cape Playhouse, Penguin Rep and White Heron Theatre Company, where he formerly served as Resident Director. He serves on NPAC’s Artistic Advisory Committee.
His acting credits include Broadway’s The 39 Steps and Philadelphia, Here I Come!; Off-Broadway’s Tryst, The Shaughraun, Checkers and As Bees in Honey Drown; and many leading regional theatres nationwide. At Westport Country Playhouse, he appeared in Journey’s End, David Copperfield, Sedition, Tryst, Around the World in 80 Days and more than twenty Script in Hand readings.
His Playhouse directing credits include The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, The 39 Steps, Theatre People, The Pancake Club and the annual A Sherlock Carol. As Artistic Director, he created the Barnstormer Series, instituted the Playhouse Playmakers class for young theatre makers and has championed new work through the Playhouse Playwrights Project.
He has created, written and directed radio drama for Westport Country Playhouse and White Heron Theatre with NPR affiliates, working with Christopher Plummer, Judith Ivey, Rhonda Ross and others. A Jen Waldman Studio faculty member, he taught film studies at Fordham University for twenty-one years. He also writes and directs the annual gala for The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, founded by Paul Newman for seriously ill children and their families. He holds a BA from Brown University and an MA from Fordham University. mark-shanahan.net
Playhouse Engagements
- Script In Hand: The Trip to Bountiful
- Script In Hand: Mrs. Christie
- Script In Hand: Tenderness and Gratitude Number Four
- Script In Hand: The Outsider
- Get ready for “Theatre People”
- Theatre People
- Script In Hand: Lombardi
- Script In Hand: Satchel Paige and the Kansas City Swing
- A Sherlock Carol 2023
- Script In Hand: Warrior Class
