Nora Brigid Monahan

Nora Brigid Monahan is a playwright and performer best known for creating and starring in the cult-hit solo musical DIVA: Live From Hell (music & lyrics by Alexander Sage Oyen), which has been performed around the world and spawned two cast recordings. Her other stage works include the LGBT comedy Aunt Jack (New Conservatory Theatre Center), the political satire The Fifth of November (Finalist for the 2026 Kendeda Playwriting Prize), book and additional lyrics to the 2024 musical adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando (music by Cynthia Saunders, lyrics by Tricia Dunn and Cynthia Saunders), and book and lyrics to the upcoming musical adaptation of The Danish Girl (music by Alex Parker). Her plays and musicals have been developed or commissioned by organizations including Less Than Rent Theatre, 59E59, The York, The Lark, NYSAF, Goodspeed Musicals, Breaking the Binary Theatre, Penn State, the U.S. National Archives, and the Alliance Theatre. For the screen, she has developed projects with EntertainmentOne, Mark Gordon Pictures, and Unique Features. Nora is currently an MFA candidate in the Playwriting program at Hunter College. As an actor, Nora regularly appears in new work and has originated roles by Charles Busch, Ken Urban, Randy Sharp, and James Presson, and most recently garnered acclaim for portraying John/Jean Kenley in the new musical A Complicated Woman by Jonathan Brielle and Ianne Fields Stewart at Goodspeed's Terris Theatre.