In a 50-Year Career, The Beacon's Kate Mulgrew Never Contemplated Leaving the Biz

Whether she's playing a Russian prison chef (Orange Is the New Black), the first female captain of the Starship Enterprise (Star Trek: Voyager), or the legendary Katherine Hepburn (Tea at Five), Kate Mulgrew manages to imbue all her roles with a tremendous sense of dignity.

There is also a palpable electricity to her performances, whether she's working on stage or screen, and in a 50-year career that ignited with the genre-breaking ABC soap Ryan's Hope, Mulgrew has left an indelible mark on a supremely eclectic roster of characters. In fact, her TV debut as Mary Ryan was so formidable that upon her exit, the character met an untimely demise after three other actors—hired and fired in quick succession—were unable to fill her shoes.

Fast forward a few decades, and the Iowa native has found her latest role Off-Broadway in Irish Repertory Theatre's production of Nancy Harris' The Beacon, which is currently playing a limited engagement through November 24. Directed by Marc Atkinson Borrull, the production casts the formidable Mulgrew as Beiv, an artist who has left her suburban Dublin home for a West Cork cottage, where her life is upended when her estranged son returns home with his new wife.

Last on Broadway opposite Daniel Radcliffe in the 2008 revival of Equus, Mulgrew was also seen in the 1993 Main Stem revival of White Liars & Black Comedy. She won an Obie Award for her work in Iphigenia 2.0, while her other New York theatre credits include The Half Life of Marie-Curie, The American Dream, The Sandbox, Our Leading Lady, Titus Andronicus, and Somewhere Fun. She performed in The Exonerated in London, and her regional work includes The Royal Family, The Film Society, What the Butler Saw, Hedda Gabler, Measure for Measure, The Real Thing, Another Part of The Forest, Major Barbara, and Antony and Cleopatra.

Among her numerous screen credits are Star Trek: Prodigy, Mrs. Columbo, Cheers, Murphy Brown, The First Lady, The Man Who Fell to Earth, Throw Momma from the Train, Star Trek: Nemesis, A Stranger Is Watching, Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins, The Response, and The Magnificent Meyersons. Mulgrew, who will next be seen in the Apple TV+ series Sinking Spring, is also the recipient of a Critics Choice Television Award as well as Emmy, Golden Globe, Outer Critics Circle, and Lucille Lortel Award nominations.

In the interview below for the Playbill series How Did I Get Here—spotlighting not only actors, but directors, designers, musicians, and others who work on and off the stage to create the magic that is live theatre—Mulgrew shares why she has never contemplated any other field of work, and how doing a soap opera prepared her for the stage.

Kate Mulgrew in *The Beacon* Carol Rosegg

Where did you train/study? Was there a teacher who was particularly impactful/helpful? What made this instructor stand out?
Kate Mulgrew: I trained at NYU under the great Stella Adler, who changed my life, ruffled, and redefined my sense of self, threw me about, and shouted, “I’ll knock the Iowa out of you if it’s the last thing I do! Learn what it is to be epic!”

What drew you to the role of Beiv?
Beiv Scanlon haunts me and clearly resides within: Irish, fierce, tender, passionate, complex, eccentric—muscular. Her love for her son is deeply complex, as was her love for her husband and, as a result, she has made some very difficult, uncompromising, and extraordinary choices. She is like a wolf—howling at the moon, drawn to isolation.

Kate Mulgrew and Francesca Faridany in *The Half-Life of Marie Curie* Joan Marcus

When you look back at your stage work, do you have a favorite theatrical experience? Also, is there any stage role or roles you would love to play?
I’ve loved almost all my stage roles: from my debut as Emily Webb in Our Town to Hedda Gabler to Clytemnestra to Isabella to Alice in Aristocrats to Katharine Hepburn to Hertha Ayrton and so many more. The stomping around in the heart, the hunt for precision, the wild joy of it, but always, always, the climbing of those stairs to the stage…and the thrill.

Having grown up watching Ryan's Hope, do you think performing lengthy scenes many days a week was good training for your theatre work?
A soap opera teaches discipline, which is absolutely indispensable to good work in the theatre. And camaraderie, which makes it all worthwhile.

During the pandemic, I was finally able to watch Orange Is the New Black and wondered what your thoughts were about the writers' ending for Red, who had been such a powerful presence throughout the series.
I wasn’t crazy about the way the writers chose to see Red off—my mother went that way, and it was exquisitely painful to witness. Nearly impossible to play well because when you are losing your mind, nothing pulses through you but constant terror. Hard to play with any nuance because impossible to understand. The lights go off one by one—can you imagine? A descent into hell.

Peter MacNicol, Kate Mulgrew, and Brian Murray on Broadway in *Black Comedy*

Tell me about a time you almost gave up but didn’t.
I never for one moment over the span of this 50-year career considered giving up. Not for a second. And I never had a day job—waited tables for a few weeks before I wrote a phony resume and got an agent, who then got me both Ryan's Hope and Our Town. I was a kid, and I was in heaven. And I thank the great Stark Hesseltine for accepting my resume and wagging his finger at me behind closed doors: “You will never lie to me again, is that understood? Now, sign here.”

Is there a person or people you most respect in your field and why?
I love and admire the great Tina Landau, the now deceased but incomparable Marian Seldes, the brilliant and noble and shattered Richard Burton, the friends who have made all the difference because of their decency and their passion: Anita Yavich, Reed Birney, Frankie Faridany, Kristine Nielsen, Taylor Schilling, Dan Radcliffe, and on and on.

Very lucky with this director, Marc Atkinson Borrull. Young, passionate, kind, smart, and utterly dedicated.

What is your proudest achievement as an actor?
My proudest achievement as an actor has been my ability to maintain, I hope, a sense of self and decency amidst the madness. The ego is so demanding and wiley and willful that I pride myself now on having survived, albeit slightly bruised, its many treacheries.

My youth is gone, and regrets are pointless, but I do hunger for the reflection and grace that only age and experience can provide.