Dave Malloy is an American composer, writer, performer, orchestrator, and sound designer. His works are often based on classical literature, and fuse classical and contemporary musical elements. He has won two Obie Awards (for Three Pianos in 2010 and _Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 in 2013) and been nominated for three Tony Awards: Best Book of a Musical, Best Original Score, and Best Orchestrations (for Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812). He has received the Smithsonian Magazine's American Ingenuity Award for History, a Jonathan Larson Grant, a New Music USA Grant, ASCAP New Horizons Award, Glickman Award, and Richard Rodgers Award.
Malloy grew up in Lakewood, Ohio. He began making theatre in San Francisco in 2000 before moving to New York City. His early work was produced with Banana Bag & Bodice, the Brooklyn-based ensemble theatre company. With that company, he composed the music for Beowulf - A Thousand Years of Baggage, written by Jason Craig.. Beowulf received a Glickman Award (2008) and Edinburgh Herald Angel (2011), and was performed at Berkeley Repertory's Roda Theatre, ART's Club Oberon, Joe's Pub, and more, as well as festivals in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Australia.
His next work, Three Pianos, was co-created with Rick Burkhardt and Alec Duffy and directed by Rachel Chavkin. A "drunken romp" through Franz Schubert's "Winterreise," it was produced at the Ontological-Hysteric Theatre in 2010. Malloy was a performer as well. The production won the Special Citation Obie Award and was followed up with runs at the New York Theatre Workshop and American Repertory Theatre. He followed Three Pianos with Beardo, co-created with Beowulf's Craig. _Beardo is a Russian indie rock musical about Rasputin, the infamous Russian figure. It was produced in San Francisco in 2011 and New York City with the Pipeline Theatre Company in 2017.
Commissioned by Ars Nova, Malloy next created Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, an electropop opera adaptation of a section of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace. Malloy was the show's composer, lyricist, orchestrator, and musical director; he also performed the role of Pierre in the show's premiere and many subsequent incarnations. The production, directed by Rachel Chavkin, premiere in October 2012 to great acclaim. It transferred to an off-Broadway run at Kazina, a custom-built tent, first in the Meatpacking District then in Times Square. The show began a pre-Broadway run at the American Repertory Theatre in December 2015, and moved to the Imperial Theatre on Broadway in November 2016. Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 earned Malloy three Tony nominations, an Obie Award, two Drama Desk nominations, a Drama League nomination, a Richard Rodgers Award, and an Off-Broadway Alliance Award, and was honored by the Theatre World Awards.
In October 2014, Ghost Quartet - a musical cycle about love, death, and whiskey - premiered at the Bushwick Starr; the sold out run was transferred to the McKittrick Hotel. It has enjoyed subsequent productions in Edinburgh, San Francisco, and Cambridge, where it won an Elliot Norton Award. Next, Malloy created Preludes, a musical fantasia set in the mind of composer Sergei Rachmaninoff. Preludes premiered at the Lincoln Center Theatre in June 2015. More recently, Malloy has composed Little Bunny Foo Foo (2018), Dewdrops: A Requiem (2018), and Octet (2019).
Malloy resides in Brooklyn, New York.
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