Beauty Queen of Leenane

This Student Edition of Martin McDonagh's The Beauty Queen of Leenane features expert and helpful annotation, including a scene-by-scene summary, a detailed commentary on the dramatic, social and political context, and on the themes, characters, language and structure of the play, as well a list of suggested reading and questions for further study and a review of performance history.

Set in the mountains of Connemara, County Galway, The Beauty Queen of Leenane tells the darkly comic tale of Maureen Folan, a plain and lonely spinster in her early forties, and Mag her devilishly manipulative ageing mother whose interference in Maureen's first and potentially last loving relationship sets in motion a train of events that is as gothically funny as it is horrific. Maureen might long for the romance that will spirit her away, but if she goes, who will stir the lumps out of Mag's Complan?

The Beauty Queen of Leenane was first presented as a Druid Theatre/Royal Court Theatre co-production in January 1996. An instant classic from its first performance, The Beauty Queen of Leenane established Martin McDonagh as the natural successor to Oscar Wilde and Joe Orton. The Oscar and Bafta-winning writer's other films and plays include In Bruges and The Pillowman.

Martin McDonagh is a London-born Irish playwright whose first play The Beauty Queen of Leenane was the 1996 winner of the George Devine Award. It also won the Writer's Guild Award for Best Fringe Play and the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Newcomer. The play was nominated for six Tony awards, of which it won four, and the Laurence Olivier Award. Since then McDonagh has gone on to write multiple smash-hit shows and films and win multiple awards including an Academy Award for Live Action Short Film for Six Shooter (2005), an Oscar nomination, a British Independent Film Award for best screenplay, an Irish Playwrights and Screenwriters Guild Award for Best Film Script and a BAFTA for best original screenplay, all for In Bruges (starring Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, 2008), and a Laurence Olivier award for Best New Play for The Pillowman (won 2004).

Jenny Stevens was an Associate Lecturer for the Open University and currently combines educational consultancy work with teaching and writing. She is the co-author with Pamela Bickley of Essential Shakespeare: The Arden Guide to Text and Interpretation (2013) and Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama: Text and Performance (2016).

Chris Megson is Senior Lecturer in Drama and Theatre at Royal Holloway, University of London. He has taught and published widely in the field of modern drama, and is editor of The Methuen Drama Book of Naturalist Plays. Other works include: Get Real: Documentary Theatre Past and Present (with Alison Forsyth, 2011), and Modern British Playwriting: The 70s: Voices, Documents, New Interpretations (2012).

Matthew Nichols graduated from the University of Birmingham in 2003 and has been teaching and leading outstanding Drama and Performing Arts departments for over a decade. Matthew also has extensive experience at a senior level with several exam boards, and was responsible for writing one of the reformed GCSE qualifications in Drama. In addition, Matthew works with schools, colleges, universities and theatres across the country. Matthew is a successful and sought after Drama education consultant, and was one of the founders of Drama Defined, which specialises in delivering high quality Drama education courses to staff and students. Matthew is currently Head of Drama at Manchester Grammar School. You can reach him on Twitter @matthew_drama.

Sara Freeman is President of Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas and Professor of Theatre Arts at the University of Puget Sound, where she has been both Department Chair and Faculty Senate Chair, among other governance and leadership roles. She researches contemporary playwriting and alternative, political, and feminist theatre and theatre companies. She is a series editor for Methuen's Student Editions of Drama, associate editor of the Encyclopedia of Modern Theatre, and past editor of the annual journal Theatre History Studies. Her book Playwriting, Dramaturgy, and Space is available in the Cambridge Elements Series on Contemporary Performance Texts.