Playwriting
Maggie writes mostly dark comedies about identity and loss, and complicated family dynamics. Her plays have tackled adoption, caregiving, motherhood, and end-of-life decisions.
Hot Dogs at the Eiffel Tower, Maggie’s critically acclaimed solo show, premiered in Austin’s FronteraFest Short Fringe. In 2019 the show received 5-star reviews at the Winnipeg Fringe Festival, followed by a five-week run at Austin’s Hyde Park Theatre. Other full-length solo works include the Freddie Mercury tribute ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ and ‘Our Angle in Heaven’, a response to the death of Princess Diana.
Most recently, her monologue Made In China, was selected as a winning finalist in the 2021 Hear Me Out Monologue Festival. Maggie is a member of advocacy group, Honor Roll!, and The Dramatists Guild.
Listen to Maggie’s 2019 Short Fringe show at the Hyde Park Theatre.
Stand-Up
Born just shy of 1970, Maggie grew up in a small English village 50 miles and a century away from London. Her parents taught her traditional British values such as “children should be seen and not heard”. This made for a quiet childhood.
Maggie couldn’t wait to escape to a place with pizza delivery and moved to London when she was 17. Unable to afford the pizza because of ridiculously high rents, she took a job delivering sandwiches on a tricycle.
Maggie graduated from a college which has since been knocked down and replaced with a comedy club and wine bar. Few people noticed the difference. She met her future husband in London and he whisked her off to his American homeland. They chose to live in Austin after a trip in February 2000. It was a glorious 85 degrees, so they unpacked the VW Bug and stayed.
As a stand-up comic, Maggie has worked with headliners Tom Ryan, Maria Bamford, Eddie Gossling and Kristin Key in Austin, San Antonio and clubs across Texas. Maggie’s dry comedy style is drawn from her British background and experiences of living in Texas, along with her slightly irrational views of parenting and fear of children.
Acting
Maggie also works as an actor and voiceover talent in Austin, Texas.
Her voiceover work includes corporate sales promotions, on and off-camera television work and volunteering for non-profit organizations such as Reading Eyes for the Blind.
In January 2006, Maggie performed her first solo show, Hot Dogs at the Eiffel Tower at the short fringe festival FronteraFest. It was selected as a Best of the Week Performance. Since then she has performed four more solo shows, including Our Angle in Heaven, about the death of Princess Diana, and a full-length version of H0t Dogs at the Eiffel Tower which led to a five-week run at the Hyde Park Theatre, Austin.
Listen to Maggie Gallant’s Voiceover Demo: