Broadway in Chicago: Pirate Queen

Here's one for your calendars. THE PIRATE QUEEN, a new musical by the guys who wrote Les Misérables and Miss Saigon, will play a pre-Broadway, World Premiere engagement at Chicago Cadillac Palace Theatre in a limited engagement from Oct 3rd thru Nov 26th 2006.

Huh? Well, Moya Doherty and John McColgan are the producers. They're the people who brought you Riverdance. Pirate Queen? It's the story of Irish chieftain Grace O'Malley, a sixteenth century woman who the producers would have you believe is a modern woman in period costume.

Well I'm a modern woman in male costume. Grace, though, was one of the last Irish clan leaders to resist the English conquest of Gaelic Ireland. You might have noticed her name, or versions of it - like Granuaile - around Ireland. She's big in Howth.

Here's her story as told by the producers, but do bear in mind that they profess to believe she has been neglected through history and that a Broadway musical will remedy that. Still, this will probably go places, maybe even Kansas City one day.

On Amazon: Granuaile: Ireland's Pirate Queen C. 1530-1603

You might also be interested in:

Irishness to Oirishness: The Flatley Dance
Flatley Troubles Troubles
Scottish-based Irish Dancer Faster than God
Lord of the Dance Insults Eileen Ivers