Gamm Stages A SKULL IN CONNEMARA

The Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre(The Gamm) presents Martin McDonagh's dark comedy A Skull in Connemara.The production marks The Gamm's final staging of the Anglo-Irish playwright's celebrated Leenane Trilogy of plays set in a mundane village in Ireland's County Galway. The Olivier and Academy Award winner, who first exhilarated audiences with his satires in the 1990s, is currently earning accolades for his new play Hangmen premiering in London's West End.

Judith Swift (The Beauty Queen of Leenane, The Lonesome West) directs Resident Actor Jim O'Brien as a widower hired to exhume skeletons in an overcrowded graveyard, and Jonathan Fisher as his young ne'er-do-well assistant; with resident actors Wendy Overly as the local busybody and Steve Kidd as a policeman with detective aspirations.

"Exploding stoves, religious figurines smashed to smithereens, torture with scalding cooking oil, the vicious murdering of men, women and dogs, and assorted assaults. Martin McDonagh's Leenane is the mayhem capital of Western Ireland. We are delighted to have Judith Swift back to direct the final play in this brutal and hilarious trilogy," said Gamm Artistic Director Tony Estrella.

"McDonagh is among the very greatest playwrights working today and a Gamm favorite," he added. "A Skull in Connemara is our fourth staging of his plays, including his incomparable The Pillowman in 2007, and it certainly won't be our last. Few playwrights capture the heart of human darkness with such knee-slapping, eye-covering, heart-breaking delight."

A Skull in Connemara runs from February 25 through March 27 at The Gamm Theatre, 172 Exchange St., Pawtucket, RI. Tickets are $41 and $49; preview performances (February 25-28) just $30. Call 401-723-4266 or order online atgammtheatre.org.