Martin McDonagh’s The Beauty Queen of Leenane opening this autumn
We’re delighted to announce a major revival of The Beauty Queen of Leenane, the Tony Award-winning play by Martin McDonagh (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri; The Lieutenant of Inishmore), directed by Artistic Director Rachel O’Riordan in a new co-production with the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre and Chichester Festival Theatre. The play will open at Chichester’s Minerva Theatre where it runs from 03 September to 02 October before transferring to the Lyric from 09 October to 06 November. The production will star Ingrid Craigie (Roadkill; The Cripple of Inishmaan) and Kwaku Fortune (Line of Duty; Normal People) with further casting to be announced. Tickets for the Lyric are now on sale here.
The production will be designed by Good Teeth Theatre, with lighting design by Kevin Treacy, music and sound design by Anna Clock and casting by Sam Stevenson.
In the mountains of Connemara, County Galway, Maureen Folan – a plain, lonely woman, tied to her manipulative and ageing mother, Mag – comes alive at her first and possibly last prospect of a loving relationship. But Mag has other ideas; and her interference sets in motion a train of events that leads inexorably towards the play’s breathtaking conclusion.
The Beauty Queen of Leenane was Martin McDonagh’s debut play which premiered in Galway in 1996, produced by Ireland’s Druid Theatre Company, and established him as one of Ireland’s most exciting new writers. The West End transfer received an Olivier Award nomination for Play of the Year and on Broadway the play received six Tony Award nominations and won four.
The Beauty Queen of Leenane was originally announced as part of Rachel O’Riordan’s inaugural season as Artistic Director of the Lyric for Autumn 2020 but was postponed due to the pandemic. The Lyric’s reopening season will launch in summer 2021 with the world premiere trilogy Out West featuring plays by Tanika Gupta, Simon Stephens and Roy Williams running from 18 June to 24 July, followed by Heart of Hammersmith, the Lyric’s first large-scale community play celebrating West London stories which runs from 12-14 August, ahead of The Beauty Queen of Leenane from 09 October to 06 November.