Margot Connolly, a 2008 graduate of The Harvey School, has won the annual Jewish Plays Project’s playwriting contest for her full-length play “Belfast Kind.”
The 25-year-old native of Pleasantville was selected as one of the top 10 finalists in January and then saw “Belfast Kind” selected as the best play by three audiences in evening readings held in Chicago, San Francisco and Burlington, Vermont, during a national tour the past few months. Her play was one of 200 submitted nationwide by writers hoping to win best play in the 2015 competition.
“Belfast Kind” is a drama about a 12-year-old Jewish girl coming-of-age in the midst of great social and political unrest in 1980s Northern Ireland. As she struggles to balance her friends, her family and her bat mitzvah, Zippy tries to find her identity in a city consumed by the often violent conflict between Protestants and Catholics.
Connolly, a 2012 graduate of Bennington College in Vermont where she studied drama and playwriting, credits her seven years at Harvey for setting her on the path to being a playwright. Involved with the school’s theater program from the start of sixth grade through her senior year, Connolly enrolled seven times in the upper school’s playwriting class between her sophomore and senior years. She took full advantage of the opportunity to write plays at Harvey.
She said the Harvey playwriting classes, along with her teacher Dianne Mahony, helped her find a passion she didn't know she had. “Mrs. Mahony was always there for me with awesome feedback and unconditional support and showed me this was something I could do and wanted to do for the rest of my life,” Connolly said.
A revised version of one of her high school plays, “Keys,” was presented this winter as part of the Frigid Fringe Festival in New York City.
Currently residing in Brooklyn, Connolly will pursue a Master of Fine Arts degree in playwriting at the University of Iowa this fall.
photos attached: Courtesy of Pam Connolly