Austen under the stars
An open-air Jane Austen film festival is
being held every Wednesday evening in
July at Dumbarton House Museum in the
Georgetown district of Washington, DC.
Visitors are urged to “grab a blanket, grab a
date, grab friends and family and enjoy Jane
Austen’s timeless love stories under the stars
in our beautiful historic garden”.
This year’s festival, the eighth, has
been expanded to include five films: Sense
& Sensibility ( July 3); Emma ( July 10);
Persuasion ( July 17); Love and Friendship
( July 24); and Pride & Prejudice ( July 31).
Admission is $6, though tickets should be
purchased in advance. Gates open at 7pm for
Adaptations across America
So many American theatres have announced
stagings and adaptations of Jane Austen’s
novels that an enthusiast could create a
decent tour while taking them in.
Next Stop Theatre Company in Herndon,
VA, is performing Kate Hamill’s spirited new
adaptation of Pride & Prejudice from October
3 to 27. Evan Hoffmann, the company’s
producing artistic director, said: “After
directing 2018’s smash hit production of 45
Plays for 45 Presidents, Megan Behm returns
to direct this romantic literary classic.”
The Wickhams: Christmas at Pemberley, by
Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon, is
returning to Jungle Theatre in the LynLake
area of Minneapolis for a run that starts on
November 18 and continues until December
- This, work which was commissioned
for last Christmas by the Jungle Theatre,
Mrs Bennet’s new advice
Dori Salerno, executive
director of Vantage
Theatre and the author of
Mrs Bennet’s Sentiments,
has written another book
from the perspective of
the matriarch of Pride &
Prejudice.
Mrs Bennet’s Admonishments, which was
published in April, is filled with Regency-era
advice on everything from motherhood to
etiquette to reasons why wives should never
pick up their husband’s socks.
Janeites visit Williamsburg
The legacy of Northanger Abbey will be under
the spotlight when members of the Jane
Austen Society of North America gather
in Colonial Willamsburg, Virginia, from
October 4 to 6.
The plenary speakers will be Jocelyn
Harris on ‘Magnificent Miss Morland’,
Dr Janine Barchas on ‘The lost copies of
Northanger Abbey’ and Roger Moore speaking
about ‘Northanger Abbey before the Tilneys:
Austen’s abbey and the religious past’.
Registration is now open. Full details
f rom: jasna.org/agms/williamsburg/index.htmlmuseum members and 7.30pm for the
general public.
Details, including wet weather alternative
dates, can be found at: dumbartonhouse.org/
event/jaff2019-5 (Picture: Chad Williams)is described as “taking us downstairs where
servants are bustling with the arrival of holiday
guests. In the warmth of the Darcy kitchen,
family secrets are revealed and loyalties are
tested.”
Opera Modesto, in Modesto, California, is
staging the British composer Jonathan Dove’s
operatic version of Mansfield Park (libretto
by Alasdair Middleton) on January 11 and
12, 2020. The performances are part of the
company’s “story into song” literacy initiative
and are supported by an Innovation Grant
from Opera America, funded by the Ann and
Gordon Getty Foundation.
And at the New Vic theatre in Santa
Barbara, CA, the Ensemble Theatre Company
is staging a musical adaptation of Emma by
Paul Gordon from February 6 to 23, 2020.
For more information search online.