Keynote
Prof. Nelson O'Ceallaigh Ritschel

Paper title: "Shaw and the 1920s London-Irish Theatre"

Nelson O'Ceallaigh Ritschel's books include Bernard Shaw, Sean O'Casey, and the Dead James Connolly (2021), Shaw, Synge, Connolly, and Socialist Provocation (2011), and Bernard Shaw, W. T. Stead, and the New Journalism (2017). He co-edited Bernard Shaw and the Making of Modern Ireland (2020), as well as guest co-edited Shaw, Journalist, SHAW: The Journal of Bernard Shaw Studies, 41.2, The Eugene O'Neill Review, Spring 2018, and Shaw and Money, SHAW, 36.1. His book chapter "Bernard Shaw" will be published in the forthcoming Sean O'Casey in Context and his chapter "Irish Politics" appeared in George Bernard Shaw in Context (2015). Nelson's recent "Bernard Shaw and the Charles Macdona Partnership" is being published in two parts in SHAW, starting with 43.2 (December 2023). He is Chairperson of Humanities at Massachusetts Maritime, and holds a Ph.D. from Brown University, where he studied with Don Wilmeth, L. Perry Curtis, David Krause, and Spencer Golub.

Plenary
Dr. LaGretta Lenker

Paper title:  “Shaw and the Woolves”

Lagretta Tallent Lenker, Ph.D. retired from the University of South Florida, University College, where she served as founding director of the Graduate Certificate Program, the Bachelor of General Studies, and other adult and professional program. She has taught in the USF English Department where she specialized in early modern, modern, late Victorian, and American drama. She has written or edited eight books and numerous articles, primarily on the works of Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, and Bernard Shaw, including Fathers and Daughters in Shakespeare and Shaw. She was guest editor of SHAW 28: Shaw and War. Five of Lenker’s books were co-edited with Dr. Sara M. Deats and focus on literature and social issues, including, Aging and Identity: A Humanities Perspective.

Lenker was also founding Treasurer of the International Shaw Society and was a founding member of the ISS Executive Committee. She has also served on the Executive Board of the International Marlowe Society and is currently a member of the SHAW editorial board and holds membership in the International Virginia Woolf Society.

Plenary
Dr. Dorothy Hadfield

Title: The Political is Personal: Charlotte Shaw’s Irish Influence

Dorothy Hadfield teaches in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Waterloo. She is author of Re: Producing Women’s Dramatic History; The Politics of Playing in Toronto, editor of the Theatre volume in the Critical Shaw series, and co-editor (with Jean Reynolds) of Shaw and Feminisms: On Stage and Off. Her chapter on Bernard Shaw and Marie Stopes appeared in Shaw: Marriage and Misalliances (Palgrave Macmillan’s Shaw and His Contemporaries series) and she contributed a chapter on “Shaw and Feminism” to Shaw in Context (Cambridge UP). In addition, she has written programme essays for productions of Candida, Major Barbara, The Russian Play, and Village Wooing at the Shaw Festival in Ontario, Canada. Her current research focuses on the underappreciated influence and legacy of Charlotte Shaw.

As a long-time member of the International Shaw Society, Hadfield has worked in various capacities for the organization and currently serves on the editorial board of the SHAW journal and as ISS membership secretary

Plenary
Prof. Anthony Roche

Paper title: Shaw, Boucicault, Friel: The  "Irish" Play.  

Anthony Roche is emeritus professor in the school of English, Drama and Film where he taught for twenty seven years. He was awarded a first class honours BA in English language and literature from Trinity college, Dublin, in 1973 and then pursued postgraduate studies in the United States. He was awarded an MA in 1976 and a PhD in 1984 from the University of California at Santa Barbara. He returned to live and teach in Ireland in 1990, where he married the writer, Katy Hayes. They have two children, Merlin and Lily, and live in Monkstown, Co. Dublin, where Tony grew up. A prolific author, Tony has written and edited extensively on Irish Drama and Theatre, especially on Brian Friel’s dramatic works: The Cambridge Companion to Brian Friel (2007) and Brian Friel: Theatre and Politics (2011).  His book The Irish Dramatic Revival, 1899 – 1939 (2015) includes the chapter “Bernard Shaw: The Absent Presence”. His most recent publication, Best Loved Bernard Shaw (2021) features selections and extracts from Shaw’s plays, essays and personal letters.
*photo courtesy of Lorcan Brereton