Center Theatre Group Hosts Community Conversations for BEAUTY QUEEN This Friday

Center Theatre Group will host a Community Conversations event for the Druid production of Martin McDonagh's "The Beauty Queen of Leenane," currently playing at the Mark Taper Forum, with a pre-show panel discussion to be held on Friday, December 2. Titled "Martin McDonagh and What Makes Irish Theatre Irish," the event will feature a discussion about McDonagh's Irish style, the legacy of his work and why it's so appealing to audiences. The discussion will take place from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at The Music Center Annex building, 601 W. Temple Street, in Rehearsal Room A, and will feature experts on Irish literature and culture as well as Center Theatre Group Artistic Director Michael Ritchie.

Joining Ritchie for the discussion are scholars Rónán McDonald and Amy Woodson-Boulton. McDonald is a professor of Modern Literature at the University of New South Wales, Sydney and is currently the president of the Irish Studies Association of Australia and New Zealand. His research interests span modern Irish literature and culture, modernism, theories of cultural value and the role of the humanities in the modern university.

Woodson-Boulton is an associate professor and chair of the history department at Loyola Marymount University. She earned a doctorate from UCLA in 2003, and her work concentrates on cultural reactions to industrialization - particularly the history of art museums, the social role of art and the changing status and meaning of art and nature in modern society.

The moderator for the discussion panel will be prize-winning poet and playwright John Menaghan who teaches courses in Irish literature and culture, 20th-century literature, the dramatic monologue and creative writing. He has a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley and also serves as the director of both the Irish Studies and Summer in Ireland programs at Loyola Marymount University.