Playwright
Cecily O'Neill
Director
Craig Robb
Overview
Rehearsed Reading – Young Jane – three plays inspired by Jane Austen’s teenage writings by Cecily O’Neill of 2TimeTheatre, introduced by Cecily herself.
Friday 22nd September 2017, 7.30 pm in Cheriton Village Hall
Young Jane is an original collection of three plays inspired by Jane Austen’s teenage writings or Juvenilia. These exuberant adaptations with captivating characters and hilarious dialogue introduce us to the young Jane Austen and hint at the writer she was to become. As she ridicules the improbable events and exaggerated sentiments of the popular romances of her day her mastery of dialogue and acute social observation foreshadow the achievements of her classic novels. The Juvenilia, three notebooks of stories, letters and plays that Jane Austen wrote between the ages of twelve and sixteen, remained unpublished for more than 100 years after her death.
Cecily O’Neill is founder and director of 2TimeTheatre, which aims to take classic or original stories, myths, and novels, and to re-imagine them for the stage. Cecily works extensively in the field of theatre and is also the author of several influential books on drama education. She is based in Winchester and her previous adaptation of Venus and Adonis was performed at the Winchester Festival in 2016. In Young Jane Cecily has used Jane Austen’s own words wherever possible, adapted for 21st century performance. Her second volume of plays based on Jane Austen’s teenage writings, Meeting Miss Austen, was recently performed as part of this year’s Winchester Festival and the commemoration of the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen’s death in Winchester in 1817.
The Cheriton Players are delighted that Cecily was able to join us for our reading of Young Jane to introduce the plays, say a few words about the creative process and what gave her the idea of turning Jane Austen’s early writings into plays now.
We are also grateful to Juliette Ashman for singing so beautifully between the plays accompanied by her father Philip. The musical interludes were appropriate pieces of music from Jane Austen’s era and complemented the reading of the three plays well.
The Readers
Mike Cornter
Jan Conway
Mick Keegan
Charlie Hellard
Tim Tyler
John Weston
Tim Conway
Tracey Anderson
Juliet Wolf
Isobel Wolf
Singer: Juliette Ashman
Pianist: Philip Ashman
Photography: Craig Robertson