Even had her family never moved to Fayetteville, Molly Griggs still thinks she would have found her way to the stage.
An acting career may have been launched. Broadway may have beckoned. TV and film roles may have been proffered.
But what began after her father Ken’s 1999 assignment to Womack Army Medical Center — where he served as a radiologist — led Molly to a place that became like a second home and, eventually, a career launching pad: the city’s Cape Fear Regional Theatre.
“I feel like there’s some sort of special kismet that brought us to Fayetteville,” said Molly, who’ll soon turn 32, reflecting on the family’s move. “That theater in particular was just the perfect incubator for someone like me. I was able to really figure out who I was, and just be able to have the opportunity to do so many things.”
And a perfect incubator it was — today, her home is in Brooklyn, in New York City, where, between April and September, Molly was traveling to Manhattan to perform on Broadway. But that wasn’t the only standout role for Molly this year.
A breakout year
The epochal day was March 20: Netflix’s comedy miniseries The Residence, a romp of a whodunnit set within the White House, dropped on the streaming platform that Thursday; later that evening, the dramatic stage play John Proctor is the Villain, a one-act revisionist consideration of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, premiered at The Booth Theater on Broadway.
Molly had starring turns in each.
In her character Lilly Schumacher’s first scene in The Residence, her emphatic, defining line is: “I was everywhere.”
For Molly the actor — whose first appearances at Cape Fear Regional Theatre were in plays such as Honk! and The Music Man — the line has proven apropos. The spring and summer found her both on televisions globally via Netflix and live on stage in theater’s Great White Way epicenter. “Everywhere” could also describe her acting range: her performances in those roles demonstrate the skills she’s developed, beginning with her Cape Fear Regional Theatre debut in 2001 and honed through her 2018 Broadway debut in a revival of Hello, Dolly!, which coincided that year with a role in a handful of episodes of HBO’s Emmy-winning satirical drama Succession.
On The Residence, Molly’s Lilly Schumacher is the scheming, pushy and entitled presidential social secretary with sights on reinventing the White House. (Among other things, but no spoilers here.) And in John Proctor is the Villain, Molly portrays Bailey Gallagher, a fresh-to-the-job guidance counselor at a rural north Georgia high school. Her character works as a mediator between school administration and a group of students reading the book (theater-speak for the stage play’s full script) of The Crucible, the partly fictionalized story of the Salem witch trials set beginning in 1692 Massachusetts. Molly’s own evolution as Miss Gallagher, from cautious to principled advocate to hero, is crucial to the story, set during 2018’s #MeToo movement.
Exposure like that isn’t always rocket fuel for an actor’s career. Even so, The Residence, which in its first week received nearly two billion viewing minutes, according to The Hollywood Reporter, continues streaming on Netflix. The show also received four Emmy nominations. John Proctor received seven Tony Awards nominations and ended its massively successful run on Sept. 7, but may get a big-screen treatment: Universal Studios picked up the film rights, with Tina Fey and Marc Platt set to produce and Tony-nominated creator Kimberly Belflower to pen the screenplay, reports The Hollywood Reporter. Play lead Sadie Sink of Stranger Things fame, who earned a Tony Awards nomination for her performance as social outcast Shelby Holcomb, is set to star in the film version.
As for Molly? With two major roles and accolades for both, her breakout 2025 looks to be just a coming attraction.
Cape Fear beginnings
“Everywhere” began somewhere, and Molly’s not shy in revealing that, for her, that somewhere was Fayetteville.
Ken and Lindsay Griggs moved Molly and her siblings here from San Antonio after Ken got that assignment to Womack. In addition to being a skilled medical officer, Ken also loved the theater — which meant he and the Griggs family became staples there, on stage and off.
Aside from opportunities to perform, Molly credits Cape Fear Regional Theatre, where she performed until 2012, for giving her “the reps” — repetitions, the focused cycles of practice of the things that develop and shape an actor’s skills — so valuable to an actor, and for exposure to career performers.
“We did four or five plays a year, and that’s a lot of plays, even for a professional actor,” she said. “And so I was able to meet people and work with people who were professional actors, as well as so many amazing actors in the community who had other jobs as well, but were also very talented.”
The quality of Cape Fear Regional Theatre’s production “was really high,” she said, considering Fayetteville wasn’t Atlanta or Los Angeles or New York. “It didn’t have the kind of infrastructure as those big cities did,” she added, “but I feel like we were able to put together really awesome, high-quality plays.”
It was while attending Terry Sanford High School that Molly began seriously contemplating making acting her career. She sought insights and advice from out-of-town actors and directors who worked at Cape Fear Regional Theatre. Supportive parents — she beams when speaking about her family — helped. Graduation, more training, an acting degree from Carnegie Mellon University, supporting roles in several television series and Broadway and off-Broadway appearances followed.
Now, as her profile grows, she’s described Fayetteville on theater podcasts as “special and strange” and “amazing.” She speaks about the city’s unique mix of diversity, transient military population and people who’ve “lived there forever” with fondness, thankful that as a military kid she found community there and at Cape Fear Regional Theatre.
A former artistic director at Cape Fear Regional Theatre remembers Molly as the rare young performer whose stage presence inexorably destined her for a career as an actor.
Tom Quaintance, the producing artistic director for the Virginia Stage Company — a professional theater organization in the Hampton Roads region — directed Molly in Hairspray, his first show after joining Cape Fear Regional Theatre.
“Molly was a high school senior, I think — maybe a junior — at the time,” he remembered. “I taught high school theatre for 13 years, and Molly was one of the very few kids I ever worked with that I thought, ‘Yeah — this is what this young person should do for a profession.’”
Tom’s assessment wasn’t just based on Molly’s immense talent, he said, or her “second to none” work ethic, or the talents and commitment of her parents.
“This is an actor whose love for what she is doing shines on stage,” he said. “Her Without Love” — where Molly’s “nerdy” character, Penny Pingleton, through song, unlocks her passion — “was breathtaking.”
“She’s also funny,” he said, “really, really funny. I think that has a lot to do with the family she grew up in and around. I love that whole bunch. Ken and I went on to work together many times … and Lindsay’s wholehearted support for the theater and the people who make it — those two built a home where it makes sense that all their kids have a great sense of humor and a love for the arts.
“They are all dear friends and I can’t wait to see where Molly’s career will take her next,” Quaintance said.
More roles beckon
With John Proctor’s run ending, Molly and her husband, the writer-director Sam French (parents to Izzy, a rescue dog), have looked forward to a break — particularly after the eight performances per week the play required. During its run, Molly had Mondays off, but matinee shows on Wednesdays and Saturdays proved more taxing, she said, than five 14-hour days in film or TV production with weekends off.
Her “free” time hasn’t been that free: not knowing for certain what’s next, Molly’s typical week has also featured two or three (or more) auditions.
“I’m still at a point in my career where I mostly just have to take what’s offered, and so I’m auditioning for everything,” she said. “And of course, I’ll have conversations with my reps about what sorts of things we think would be good as a next step, and we can put more energy toward those projects.”
She thought she’d focus more on television after her appearance on The Residence; a high-profile guest appearance on the Emmy-winning, long-running TV drama Law & Order: Special Victims Unit came early this month. She guest-starred in Season 27, Episode 2, which aired Oct. 2 on NBC and is available to stream now on Peacock. She also has “other things percolating” that could pop at any time.
“But you know, sometimes things come up, like the play, for instance — it was something that came across that was a surprise,” Molly said. “… (It) was so special and meaningful to me, and then they wanted me to do it. So I was like, ‘Of course, I’ll do it.’ So I kind of am just going where the wind is taking me and throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks.”
Molly prefers characters with an arc who experience transformation. And her authenticity — in person and on stage — and sense of gratitude are endearing. That’s evident to those who’ve worked with her, says Autumn Angelettie, the assistant director of John Proctor, who vividly remembers Molly’s audition for the play.
“The second she walked in, there was just a wonderful glow and radiating smile to her that felt very much in alignment with the Miss Gallagher character,” Angelettie said. “There’s this sort of smiling, Southern, small-town quality that I think totally comes from the region. That just comes very naturally to Molly, being from North Carolina.”
She noted Molly’s “gorgeous, effortless instinct and immediate connectivity to Miss Gallagher” that other actors considered for the part couldn’t replicate.
“Molly came into the role with a deep, intrinsic understanding of the character on the very, very first day,” Angelettie said. But her spirit also helped shape the culture of the company, something Angelettie described as “very joyous” and generous.
“And I think a lot of that has to do with Molly leading by example, and allowing that gratitude and that openness to learning from her peers, regardless of whether they were older or younger than her, to permeate into the culture of the company,” she said. “And I think that kindness was palpable and contagious, for sure.”
“She’s an incredible talent,” said Angelettie, who took pains to express her “adoration and admiration” for Molly. “So it would be no surprise to me if she is continuously and consistently booked from this show onward for the rest of her life.”
That’d be plenty fine with Molly.
“It’s like I just genuinely do want to be doing everything [as an actor],” she said. “And I know that’s not possible, but I’m going to try my hardest.”
Read CityView Magazine’s “Arts & Culture” October 2025 e-edition here.