Miranda Rose Hall

Playwright Spotlight: Miranda Rose Hall

Miranda Rose Hall, author of The Hour of Great Mercy (PlayFest presented by Harriett’s Charitable Trust 2017 new play reading) shares the inspiration behind her latest work.

OST: Why are you passionate about the subject matter of The Hour of Great Mercy? What inspired you?

MRH: This play comes out of a lot of personal stories for me, though it ultimately does not tell an autobiographical story. I spent a year serving in a long-term care and end-of-life facility in Alaska, and this play comes out of my relationship to Alaska, and the Catholic service communities I was a part of when I was there. It’s also inspired by my relationship with a family friend, but I don’t want to give too much away!

OST: What themes or ideas are you focusing on with this play?

MRH: This play comes out of questions about forgiveness, the qualities of intimacy in an isolated place, and the nature of community when you’re banded against extreme natural elements…it’s also a lot about finding love in unexpected places.

OST: Describe your play writing style in one sentence. What should the audience know about you?

MRH: I will try anything once!

OST: Tell us something unique about your writing process. For example, do you have a sacred writing place or a special writing talisman? Do you secretly love rewrites? Is there music that gets you in the mood to write?

MRH: I write on the floor of my apartment. My desk is a low end table I found on the street in New Haven, CT while I was in graduate school. It has just enough room for a lamp, my computer or notebook, and a few pictures of my family. I sit on a little cushion (no chair) and write there. I find it nearly impossible to write in coffee shops. And it’s always important to have some houseplants nearby.

About Miranda Rose Hall: 

Miranda Rose Hall is a playwright from Baltimore, MD. Her plays have been produced at Yale School of Drama, Yale Cabaret, Yale Summer Cabaret, the DC Fringe Festival, the Sam French Off-Off Broadway Festival, and by Longacre Lea for the DC Women’s Voices Theater Festival. She has developed her work at Baltimore’s Center Stage, the Kennedy Center/NNPN MFA Playwrights Festival, and the Orchard Project. She is currently Resident Playwright and ensemble member with LUBDUB. Theatre Company, a New York-based physical theater company, and on faculty at Georgetown University.

Miranda was the 2013-2014 Hot Desk Playwright in Residence at Baltimore’s Center Stage, where she helped launch the program Wright Right Now. She has taught playwriting as a visiting lecturer at Wesleyan University and as a teaching artist with Arena Stage, Young Playwrights Theater, the O’Neill Playwriting Program at Yale, and the Young Playwrights Festival at Center Stage. Miranda spent two years with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest, serving marginalized populations in Anchorage, AK and Missoula, MT. She graduated with her BA from Georgetown University and her MFA from the Yale School of Drama.