Beowulf Alley Theatre Presents
The Beauty Queen of Leenane by Martin McDonagh
Followed by a Concert of Irish Folk Music by Scatter the Dust
Beowulf Alley Theatre, 11 South 6th Avenue, Downtown Tucson presents The Beauty Queen of Leenane by Martin McDonagh from February 25-March 13, 2011. Thursdays through Saturdays, performances are at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2:30 p.m.
Tickets are on sale now. Prices range from $15, Preview night only, to $23 at the door with online and certain nightly discounts. The March 3rd performance is a benefit performance for the St. Patrick’s Day Parade. For more information, please refer to our website at http://www.beowulfalley.org/html/tickets.html. March 6th performance will be followed by an evening concert of Irish folk music by Scatter the Dust including Irish dancers. Tickets for the concert are available for $12 in advance and $15 at the door.
The Beauty Queen of Leenane is directed by Sheldon Metz. The ensemble includes Rhonda Hallquist, Cynthia Jeffery, Robert Anthony Peters and Jared Stokes.
Loaded with savage irony, surreal humor and a touch of melodrama, Martin McDonagh’s The Beauty Queen of Leenane looks at the malevolence of people leading hopeless lives.
Set in 1989 in the small village of Leenane (pronounced leh-nan) in Connemara, County Galway, Ireland, the play tells the darkly comic tale of Maureen Folan, a plain and lonely woman, and Mag, her manipulative aging mother, whose interference in Maureen’s first and possibly final chance of a loving relationship set in motion a terrifying train of events.
…a proper, perfectly plotted drama that sets out, above all, to tell a story as convincingly and disarmingly as possible. –New York Times
Anglo-Irish playwright Martin McDonagh, became the first playwright since William Shakespeare to have four of his plays produced professionally in London in a single season. McDonagh wrote “Beauty Queen” in just eight days and earned a London Critics Circle Award and Evening Standard Award (both in 1996), a Drama Desk Award (1998), and six Tony Award nominations, four awarded (1998).
Sheldon Metz, Director, directed the MAC Award-nominated Proof and the World Premier of Gavin Kayner’s Noche de los Muertos at Beowulf Alley. He currently serves on Beowulf Alley’s Artistic Development Committee and is Program Chair for the Old Time Radio Theatre and Concerts at the Alley. Sheldon is an actor, set designer, director and served as Executive Director of A.C.C.T., too! - The Association of Commercial and Community Theatres - the West Coast Theatre Conference (Los Angeles) and The Theatre Conference (New York). He also served as a Producing Director for the Playwrights Kitchen Ensemble (PKE ), under the Artistic Direction of Dan Lauria.
