Brought up in County Offaly, Marina Carr graduated form University College Dublin in 1987 with a degree in English and Philosophy. She was Writer-in-Residence at the Abbey and Trinity College Dublin. Her plays include The Cordelia Dream (RSC), Marble (Abbey, Teatro Vascello Rome), 16 Possible Glimpses (Abbey), Phaedra Backwards (Mccarter Princeton), On Raftery's Hill (Royal Court, London), Portia Coughlan (Royal Court and the Abbey Dublin), By the Bog of Cats (Abbey, Dublin and Wyndham's Theatre, London), The Mai (Peacock, Dublin/Abbey, Dublin/Tricycle/McCarter, Princeton), Low In The Dark (Project Arts Centre, Dublin), Ullaloo (Abbey, Dublin Theatre Festival), Ariel (Abbey), and two plays for children, As Meat Is To Salt (Abbey) and The Giant Blue Hand (The Ark). Awards include Irish Times Playwright Award 1998, The Susan Smith Blackburn Award for Portia Coughlan, Best New Irish Play at Dublin Theatre Festival 1994, The EM Foster Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American/ Ireland Fund Award, The Macaulay Fellowship and The Hennessy Award. She is a member of Aosdána.