American writer, performer and gamemaster
Brennan Lee Mulligan (born January 4, 1988) is an American comedian, actor, writer, and gamemaster. He has worked with CollegeHumor as a sketch writer and performer, and as gamemaster for their actual play web series, Dimension 20. He also wrote the superhero webcomic Strong Female Protagonist alongside artist Molly Ostertag.
Early life
Mulligan was born on January 4, 1988, in New York[1] as the son of Elaine Lee and Joe Mulligan. He was introduced to the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons by his mother at age nine,[2] first gamemastering at age ten.[3]
Mulligan was introduced to theatrical gaming while attending the Hudson Valley Beltane Festival at age eleven.[4] He started attending The Wayfinder Experience, a live-action role-playing summer camp,[5] spending much of his teenage years working as a lead story writer, performer, and camp counsellor there.[3][6] At age 15, Mulligan and his brother co-founded Bootleg Adventures, organising one-day live-action role-playing games to introduce children to theatrical gaming.[4] In an interview with the Times-Herald Record, a 16 year-old Mulligan expressed conviction in theatrical gaming's potential to enable 'kids [to] come out healthier beings than when they first arrive.'[4]
In 2005, at 17 years old, Mulligan graduated from SUNY Ulster with an associate degree,[1] having majored in philosophy/humanities.[3] In 2009, Mulligan graduated from the School of Visual Arts with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in screenwriting.[7][8]
Career
Writing
Mulligan and Molly Ostertag co-created the webcomic Strong Female Protagonist, which was named one of io9's Best New and Short Webcomics of 2012.[9] In 2015, Strong Female Protagonist won an Autostraddle Comic and Sequential Art Award.[10]
In 2017, Mulligan joined CollegeHumor as a writer for Um, Actually: The Web Series.[11] In 2018, CollegeHumor's streaming service Dropout launched Um, Actually as a game show, with Mulligan continuing to write for the show until 2020.[12] Mulligan was also a writer for several scripted shows on Dropout, including the space saga Troopers[13] and the mockumentary Gods of Food.[14][15]
In 2023, Mulligan was a writer for Foul Play, an interactive murder mystery series created by Andrew Barth Feldman and Alex Boniello.[16][17]
Performing
In his twenties, he performed and taught[3] comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade (UCB).[6] It was working at the UCB that led Mulligan to working at CollegeHumor,[3] (premiering on December 14, 2017, with Who's the Real Cop?).[18]
Since 2018,[19] Mulligan has been an executive producer, writer, and gamemaster for Dimension 20 on Dropout (which also hosts his video podcast, Adventuring Academy).[2] In his capacity as a professional D&D gamemaster, he has been cited by Bleeding Cool,[20] Comic Book Resources,[21] Wired,[22] and Wizards of the Coast's own Dungeons & Dragons podcast—Dragon Talk.[3] Glen Weldon, in a review of Dimension 20 for NPR, commented that "Mulligan is such a good DM and he's got so many improv skills. He's such a close and responsive listener that no matter what the players throw at him, he can always roll with it, without breaking the game. And that is a very rare skill, so it's terrific stuff".[23] Mulligan was the Dungeon Master for Exandria Unlimited: Calamity, a weekly, four-part actual play web series spin-off of Critical Role that premiered on May 26, 2022.[24][25] In January 2023, it was announced that Mulligan with Erika Ishii, Aabria Iyengar, and Lou Wilson will star in the creator-owned actual play podcast Worlds Beyond Number.[26][27] The show launched on March 1, 2023 and quickly became one of the top 20 Patreon accounts in the world.[28]
Awards
He has received an "Excellence in Performance Award" from the New York International Fringe Festival,[29] and won a 2019 Webby Award in the "Comedy: Shortform" category for his CollegeHumor skit, Tide CEO: You Gotta Stop Eating Tide Pods.[30]
Personal life
Mulligan is the godson of acclaimed comics artist and writer, Michael Kaluta.[31] In November 2015, Mulligan was a contestant on the American version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and won $50,000 after incorrectly answering the $100,000-question.[32]
By 2020, he lived in Los Angeles.[21] On January 21, 2021, Mulligan announced his engagement to his fiancée—Isabella "Izzy" Roland—via Instagram.[33] They married on April 1, 2023.[34]
In August 2023, during the 2023 Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA strikes, Mulligan led a Dungeons & Dragons-themed picket day at Universal Studios where the final boss was AMPTiamat.[35][36]
On January 23, 2024, Brennan announced the birth of his and Roland's first child, a daughter, on the Patreon for the podcast Worlds Beyond Number.[37]
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