The St. Petersburg Times reports that a new musical based on Pride and Prejudice is opening tonight in St. Petersburg. Crossing the Bay, produced by LiveArts Peninsula Foundation, is set in 1880’s Florida against the backdrop of railroad construction and Civl War aftermath.

Instead of Elizabeth Bennet and her sister, Jane, the middle-class heros of Pride and Prejudice whose mother is determined to marry them off to aristocrats, Crossing the Bay has Lizzie and Jane Tippetts, daughters of a citrus farmer. Their beaus - Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley in the novel - are fictional characters from local history, Frederic Disston, a member of a pioneering Pinellas clan, and Colin Plant, nephew of Henry B. Plant, the railroad magnate and founding father of Tampa.

“There’s more Pride and Prejudice than there is history in my mind,” Leavengood said. “I’m such a fan of it. I love the characters, and I love the story line. There are certain small sections where it’s absolutely verbatim” from the novel.

The article continues….

The musical’s plot turns on the railroad crossing Tampa Bay to Pinellas, and whether its destination would be what was to become Gulfport or St. Petersburg, where it ultimately ended up.

“The most interesting show is one where the most people or things change,” Leavengood said. “And this was the greatest change for this area. Without the railroad, we wouldn’t have downtown St. Pete as it is today.”

The class theme of Pride and Prejudice has been given a North-South twist in Crossing the Bay. The Tippetts patriarch is a Civil War veteran, a former Confederate officer fallen on hard times. There’s also a Pinellas-Hillsborough conflict, with the Tippetts and other Pinellas residents portrayed as Southern rustics and the Plants and their set as Northern industrialists settled in Tampa.

In an interesting bit of trivia, the Elizabeth Bennet character is played by Jennie Eisenhower, who is Dwight D. Eisenhower’s great-granddaughter and Richard Nixon’s granddaughter.

The Times also has a brief but useful history of other Austen adaptations.

This mixture of Austen and local history is right up this Cub Reporter’s alley. Too bad a trip from Washington State to Florida is out of the question. Again, AustenBlog welcomes reader reviews!