Jack “Jack” Gilhooley (June 1938–January 2023) was a playwright. His play She’ll Stick To Ye’ has been stage read extensively in the United States and United Kingdom. The Derry Slope Off premiered at Elite Theatre in California in September 2015 and his co-authored (with his wife, Jo Morello) Life Upon the Wicked Stage was produced in Tampa Bay in January 2015. His co-authored (with historian Daniel Czitrom) Triangle opened at 59E59 in New York City in 2011. His dark comedy, Shooters, world premiered at Dublin’s PurpleHeart Theatre, drew rave reviews and was recently issued— along with Mummers and Dancin’ to Calliope— by Broadway Play Publishing Inc. It opened in January 2006 at BacklotsArts in Sarasota, Florida.
Gilhooley was a Eugene O’Neill Conference Guest Playwright, NYFTA Grant recipient, and has had two Fulbright Guest Artist appointments (Spain and Ireland). He has received four Florida Arts Council grants, two NEA awards (Individual Playwright and International to Centaur Theatre, Montreal), two Puffin Grants, and a John Ringling Fund Award. Gilhooley was selected as a fellow at Hawthornden Castle, Scotland (twice) and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Ireland. An alumnus of New Dramatists, he had many New York productions (in addition to the New York Shakespeare Festival) in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, at Circle Rep, The Phoenix, the fledgling Manhattan Theatre Club, Theatre for the New City, on Theatre Row, and his works have been presented coast to coast, in Europe and in Australia. Developmental projects have been at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, Aspen Playwrights Festival, Sundance Playwrights Lab, Avignon Festival, Mount Sequoyah New Play Retreat and North Carolina Playwrights Festival. He was twice commissioned by Actors Theatre of Louisville and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Gilhooley has held residencies and fellowships at MacDowell, Yaddo, Djerassi, the Albee Foundation, and the Dorset Colony.
Published by Samuel French, New American Library, Smith & Kraus, Palmetto Press and by Broadway Play Publishing, Gilhooley was a member of Dramatists Guild. He passed away in January 2023.