Brian O'Byrne has been nominated for a Tony for his work in The Lonesome West. Remember the nice young man who nearly saves the day in The Beauty Queen of Leenane? He was played by Brian F. O'Byrne, the only one of the four Tony-nominated actors in that Broadway drama who didn't win a prize. Now he's back, having dropped the middle initial, and having taken on a sneering, smarmy, slimy persona as Valene, one of the two loathsome brothers in The Lonesome West.
Leenane was not O'Byrne's first New York theater experience. He'd already appeared on Broadway in Wendy Wasserstein's The Sisters Rosensweig, Off-Broadway in Hapgood, and in several productions at Irish Repertory Theater.
A graduate of Trinity College's Samuel Beckett Centre for Drama and Theatre in Dublin, O'Byrne has worked at the Gate (Sharon's Grave) and the Abbey (Mr. Collins), as well as in three Martin McDonagh plays at Garry Hynes's Druid Theatre.