Dave Malloy


Dave Malloy is an American composer, playwright, lyricist, and actor. He has written several theatrical works, often based on classic works of literature. They include Moby-Dick, an adaptation of Herman Melville's classic novel; Octet, a chamber choir musical about internet addiction; Preludes, a musical fantasia set in the mind of romantic composer Sergei Rachmaninoff; Ghost Quartet, a song cycle about love, death, and whiskey; and
the Tony Award winning Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, an electropop opera based on War and Peace.

Career

Malloy grew up in Lakewood, Ohio, and studied music composition and English literature at Ohio University. He began making theater in San Francisco in 2000. Early work included pieces with Banana Bag & Bodice, for whom he has been the composer since 2002.
In 2008 he composed music for Beowulf – A Thousand Years of Baggage, a Banana Bag & Bodice SongPlay written by Jason Craig and commissioned by the Shotgun Players in Berkeley, California. Beowulf received the 2008 Glickman Award and a 2011 Edinburgh Herald Angel, and has played a number of venues and festivals, including Berkeley Repertory’s Roda Theatre, ART’s Club Oberon, Joe’s Pub, and festivals in England, Ireland, Scotland and Australia.
After Beowulf, he co-created and performed in Three Pianos, a drunken romp through Schubert’s "Winterreise" that premiered in 2010 at the Ontological-Hysteric Theater, winning a Special Citation Obie Award, and had runs at New York Theatre Workshop and American Repertory Theater.
His next work was Beardo, a Russian indie rock musical based on the life of Rasputin, which Malloy wrote with Beowulf collaborator Jason Craig. It played in 2011 in San Francisco and had its New York premiere in February 2017 in a production by Pipeline Theater Company.
For Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, Malloy was the composer, lyricist, orchestrator, music director and performer in the role of Pierre Bezukhov. Comet was commissioned by Ars Nova and premiered there in October 2012, directed by Chavkin; in May 2012 the show transferred to Off-Broadway playing in Kazino, a tent custom-built for the piece, first erected in the Meatpacking District and then in Times Square. In December 2015 the show played a pre-Broadway run at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The show has won an Obie Award, the 2013 Richard Rodgers Award for Musical Theater, the Off Broadway Alliance's Best New Musical Award, three Elliot Norton Awards, eight IRNE Awards, eleven Lucille Lortel Awards nominations, five Drama Desk nominations, and two Drama League Award nominations. It opened on Broadway at the Imperial Theatre in October 2016 with Josh Groban as Pierre. Malloy reprised his role as Pierre multiple times throughout the run, and was the final Broadway Pierre.
Ghost Quartet opened in October 2014 at the Bushwick Starr. After an extended sold out run, the piece transferred to the McKittrick Hotel, home of Sleep No More, and has since played in a number of cities, including Edinburgh, San Francisco, and Cambridge, where it won an Elliot Norton Award. The piece is a staged concept album, about love, death, and whiskey. This was followed by Preludes, a piece about Rachmaninoff and hypnosis that premiered at Lincoln Center Theater in June 2015.
Octet, a chamber choir musical written by Malloy and directed by Annie Tippe, ran at the Signature Theatre Company Residency 5 Theatre in New York City from April 30 to June 30, 2019. The show features an eight-part a cappella chamber choir and "explores addiction and nihilism within the messy context of 21st century technology" premiered in a limited run at the Signature Theatre Company in New York City. It is the first part of his Signature Residency, which will include three shows over the course of five years.
Moby-Dick, a musical based on Herman Melville's Moby-Dick with book, music, lyrics, and orchestrations by Malloy and directed by Rachel Chavkin, ran at the American Repertory Theater from December 3, 2019 to January 12, 2020. The middle section of the show, titled Moby Dick, Part III: The Ballad of Pip was previewed at Joe's Pub back in March of 2014.
Malloy lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Theater works

Musicals

In addition to the full cast recordings listed below, rough recordings and demos to most of Malloy's shows can be found on his website.
Official video recordings of Ghost Quartet, Beardo, and Beowulf have also been released online.
He is the winner of three OBIE Awards, a Lucille Lortel Award, a Drama Desk Award, a Richard Rodgers Award, Glickman Award, ASCAP New Horizons Award, Jonathan Larson Grant, and New Music USA Grant, a recipient of the 2009 NEA/TCG Career Development Program for Theatre Directors and Designers, and the 2011 Composer-in-Residence at Ars Nova. In 2017, Malloy was the recipient of Smithsonian Magazine's American Ingenuity Award for History.