Comedy/ 12 Characters, 5 Men, 7 Women (Doubling possible)/ Full Length, 90 minutes
Synopsis: Does the author direct her characters’ destinies . . . or is it the other way around? When Elizabeth Bennet, Mr. Darcy, and Lady Catherine take the stage, all bets are off.
Uncovering the fiery side of a not-so-gentle Jane Austen, Lizzy, Darcy and Jane explores the interplay between Jane Austen’s life and work, and probes her crackling relationship with the uncompromising heroine of Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennet. Heady with her first taste of love, young Jane Austen creates the feisty Elizabeth in an exuberant moment of inspiration. But when her real-life romance sours, Jane sentences her alter ego to marry the odious Mr. Collins, and sentences herself to a suitor no less ill-matched. The fates of the heroine, the novel, and the author are at stake. Elizabeth Bennet must take action.
While recent films and television programmes about Jane Austen are structured as naturalistic, biographical narratives, Lizzy, Darcy and Jane creates a world in which historical and fictional characters vie for position on stage, as Jane Austen’s external and inner worlds collide. Lizzy, Darcy and Jane offers a dramatically different take on an author-and heroine we all think we know so well.
“Successfully fuses aspects of Jane Austen’s real life with the creation of her best-loved novel, Pride and Prejudice . . . . lively, humorous and entertaining.”
– Kathryn Eastman, Jane Austen Society
Contact information: Amateur and professional rights:
Joanna Alexandra Norland
3 Back Lane
Godden Green, Kent
UK, TN15 OJH
Tel: 011 44 (0) 1732 761 864
E-mail: joanna.norland@gmail.comAmateur Rights:
Samuel French
About the Playwright:Joanna Alexandra Norland’s one-act play Mothers Have Nine Lives premiered in the 1992 Young Playwrights Festival at Playwrights Horizons in new York. The script has since received productions at various London venues including the Bridewell Theatre, in 2002, and the Tabard Theatre, in 2007. Joanna’s work has also been showcased in London at Soho Theatre, Hampstead Theatre, and the Theatre Museum. Her short play, Lydia Reconsiders, which champions Lydia Bennet, the black sheep of Pride and Prejudice, was selected as a finalist in the 2004 National Ten-Minute Play Contest sponsored by the Actors Theatre of Louisville. Joanna is a member of the London-based playwright development group, Player Playwrights.
Joanna has a B.A. from Brown University, Rhode Island, an M.Phil. from King’s College, Cambridge, and a J.D. from Yale Law School. Lizzy, Darcy and Jane is the first in a series of plays in which Joanna is dramatizing the interplay of characters’ inner and external worlds. In her own experience, these spheres intersect and interface in exciting, if unpredictable ways, as she juggles roles as a playwright, international tax attorney, art project coordinator, and mom.
She lives in Kent, England.
Lizzy, Darcy and Jane was first produced at the Bath Jane Austen Festival in September, 2006, under the title Jane Austen Makes a Match. A revised version of the script was produced by the C Company at the Tabard Theatre, London, in January, 2008.
