Alert Janeite Heather L. sent us a link to a listing of upcoming programs on PBS, including the “Jane Austen Festival” on Masterpiece Theatre.

Jane Austen Festival
Producing organizations: WGBH and various co-producers. Presented by Masterpiece Theatre. Distributor: WGBH. Episodes: 3 productions 1 x 90-120, 1 production 2 x 120. Status: production. Major funders: PBS, CPB. Executive producer: Rebecca Eaton. Contact: Andrea Flores, andrea_floresatwgbh.org; 617-300-2561.

New adaptations of four Austen novels—Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility and Persuasion—will be scheduled over the course of the 2007-08 Masterpiece Theatre season to create a programming event.

Several new nuggets of information can be gleaned from this tidbit. We know that the three ITV films are all 90-120 minute productions shown as a single episode, so that means that S&S07, as long suspected, will be two 2-hour episodes, like the recent production of JANE EYRE (which we rather enjoyed, by the bye).

Also, please note that it is scheduled “over the course of the 2007-2008 season,” which means that the films might not air one after the other–they might be scattered throughout the Masterpiece Theatre season. Or maybe not. But we should be prepared for that eventuality.

ETA: Masterpiece Theatre will broadcast films beginning in January 2008.

LA Brain Terrain reports that soprano Julianne Baird and her accompanists will be performing “Music from Jane Austen’s Collection” this Sunday, February 4, 2007, at The Neighborhood Church in Pasadena, California. Tickets are $25 with the usual discounts. Please visit the Con Gioia Web site for details and ordering information.

The Editrix has had the pleasure of hearing Professor Baird perform selections from Jane Austen’s own music collection and encourages SoCal Janeites to make every effort to attend.

The Garland Civic Theatre of Dallas, Texas, is staging a new adaptation of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE now through February 17, 2007.

Pride and Prejudice belongs to the romantic-comedy genre and is the most famous of Jane Austen’s novels. It is a story of first impressions and vanity, of truth and falsehoods, of re-evaluations, love and, of course, of unyielding pride and blinding prejudice, told with a wry, incisive humor. Lissa Creola, who graduated from Southern Methodist University, adapted the work the stage. Its premier production was by Bucket Productions at the Bath House Cultural Center in February of 2001. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reviewer said, “Bucket Productions’ theatrical adaptation of Jane Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’ . . . unfolds like a good episode of Masterpiece Theatre. . . . Lissa Creola has done a masterful job of wrestling the sprawling, wordy novel into a compact theatrical package.” The reviewer from The Dallas Morning News related, “There’s a good reason Jane Austen is so popular on movie screens: great dialogue. That same quality makes Lissa Creola’s stage adaptation of Pride and Prejudice delicious. …The lean, efficient script crackled pleasantly at Thursday’s opening. Ms. Creola has taken on a difficult assignment and triumphed in the same modest but undeniable way as her heroines.”

Performances are held at the Granville Arts Center. Tickets are $16-20 and are available online. AustenBlog would love a review from a reader who gets to see this production.

We’re kind of surprised it hasn’t happened yet, actually.

As one Hollywood agent said to me: ” I would kill to represent that woman. I could get her multiple overall deals with every studio in town, plus a play-or-play for a series based on that Lizzie-I’m-not-prejudiced-chick. Sheesh, you sure she’s like dead?”

We retire, torn between hilarity and horror.

Alert Janeite Cindy C. sent us some information about the Beyond the Book program in Florida, which has chosen Pride and Prejudice as its 2007 selection. The selection is tied to the Asolo Repertory Theatre’s stage production of Pride and Prejudice in March and April, and the program is “aimed at inspiring reading, literacy, and community connection.”

The list of planned events is quite extensive (we’re a little jealous! So much Janeite fun to be had!)

Cindy tells us, “The actress doing the book readings is understudy for the role of Mrs. Bennet and she said the set design will be minimalist, which should be interesting. The photos at the Asolo’s web site seem to have been taken at the John Ringling mansion, Ca’d'Zan.”

(We’re only a week behind the times around here! But we get caught up eventually.)

The Web site of the Jane Austen Society of North America (jasna.org) has a new look. The JASNA site has a ton of information about Jane Austen and her work, so even if you are not in North America, we recommend that you check it out!

Full disclosure: the Editrix had a small part in the proceedings (and is quite pleased with the final result).

How lovely to finally tick that category box…we had just about given up on this project!

From an interview with Gwyneth Hughes, scriptwriter of the BBC series Five Days and several other films, briefly mentioned Miss Austen Regrets in an interview with the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain.

What projects have you got coming up next?

I’m in pre-production for my film called Miss Austen Regrets for the BBC. It tells the story of the last couple of years of her life, and tries to make sense of how she felt about her own romantic choices. I’m also in the middle of writing another true-life story for ITV and there are various other projects in development which I am too superstitious to talk about.

Hmm, almost sounds like a sequel for BECOMING JANE!

There, chew on that for a bit. *throws raw meat into cage, backs away quickly*

We were delighted to hear from Anne Timmons, the artist for the upcoming Gothic Classics graphic novelization of several Gothic novels and Northanger Abbey, which will be out in May 2007. The page for the book itself has a little illustration at the very bottom of the left side–John Thorpe driving Catherine away from the Tilneys! “Stop, stop, Mr. Thorpe!” And Anne’s blog features a little panel of Catherine on the streets of Bath–what or whom is she so happy to see, hmm?

*squee*

P.S. A little poking around revealed the back cover of this number of Gothic Classics, from Northanger Abbey–looks like somebody’s doing some investigating!

Amanda Grange, the author of (Mr.) Darcy’s Diary, wrote to tell us that the Holy Grail of P&P sequels for many Darcy fans, The Confession of Fitzwilliam Darcy by Mary Street, will be reissued by Robert Hale at the end of January. It’s available at Amazon UK right now, but Amanda suggests e-mailing Hale right now at enquire AT halebooks DOT com to order your copy.

Alert Janeites Cheryl K. and another who did not leave a name forwarded information from Publisher’s Lunch Deal News about an upcoming book called Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler.

Laurie Viera Rigler’s CONFESSIONS OF A JANE AUSTEN ADDICT, a literary homage, comedy, and exploration of identity, destiny, and the nature of time, that tells the story of a contemporary thirty-something LA woman and Jane Austen fan who wakes up inside the body of an Englishwoman in Austen’s time.

This means the book has been sold pretty recently to the publisher, so do not expect to see it for a year to eighteen months. We’ll keep an eye out for more info.

Alert Janeite Amo let us know that Buena Vista is giving away a boxed set of Jane Austen’s novels as a promotion for the upcoming release of BECOMING JANE.

Please note that the contest is open only to residents of the U.K. and the Republic of Ireland.

Alert Janeite Karen wrote to tell us that the HUBbub Players will present Jane Kendall’s adaptation of Pride and Prejudice at the Theater Zerbrochene Fenster in Berlin from February 8 through 12. The play will be presented in English.

Tickets are from 5 to 8 Euros.

Karen also asks if anyone knows anything about this particular adaptation? Please post in comments!

We are kicking ourself because we forgot to post information about this earlier, and it sounds like fun. Cheer From Chawton: A Jane Austen Family Theatrical is currently on tour in various venues. It’s a one-woman play, with audience members being pulled in to play other characters.

In the tradition of amateur theatricals held during her childhood at Steventon rectory, Jane Austen has prepared an entertainment for her family, in which her siblings are to take part as fellow performers. She expects to begin by playing Mrs. Bennet (from Pride and Prejudice), to her brother James’s Mr. Bennet. But her family has played a trick on her, leaving Jane Austen to tackle the audacious task of an unrehearsed solo performance. This production is interactive - the audience plays Jane’s family and the hilarity begins.

A few recent performances are past, but there are upcoming performances in Delaware, New Jersey and St. Louis.

Putting most of this behind a jump because it’s not safe for work, kids, or possibly the safety of one’s eyes in relation to sporks. (more…)

This article gave us a severe throbbing pain directly above our right eye. The author says right up front that she is not a big Jane Austen reader, but still! But still!

It begins with a lot of oh-look-at-the-obsessed-Janeites-aren’t-they-cute-with-their-board-games-and-naming-their-cat nonsense. Then we rapidly proceed to complete nonsense.

Jane Austen was one of eight children of an aristocratic mother and a handsome father whose family had lost its money.

WHAT?

The unmarried Jane lived first with one sibling then another.

NO! It’s called “paying visits for long stretches of time” and WAS PERFECTLY NORMAL! Jane wasn’t Fanny Price for crying out loud!

“She lived well without having anything in her own right,” Davis said. “All of her novels are about getting married.”

Yes, they’re not about anything else. Sigh.

The language is difficult to read with an archaic vocabulary, Davis said. “Our vocabulary today is elementary.” The 19th century conversations “used long, convoluted sentences.”

Long, yes. Convoluted, no. They make perfect sense and are elegant in their construction. If you are not accustomed to it, slow down a little, but it is perfectly comprehensible. Jane did not write in middle English.

“They’re like people we know,” she said. “Some seem gracious but are scheming for position. There can be a lack of civility, and all are from dysfunctional families.”

Well. Some, certainly, but not all.

It’s nice to know that the upcoming biographical film about Jane Austen will clear up all these misapprehensions, isn’t it? *headdesk*

Posting this just because it’s our blog and we can. Attentive Gentle Readers will understand the context, we think.

From A Memoir of Jane Austen by J.E. Austen-Leigh, Chapter Ten:

Some persons have surmised that she took her characters from individuals with whom she had been acquainted. They were so life-like that it was assumed that they must once have lived, and have been transferred bodily, as it were, into her pages. But surely such a supposition betrays an ignorance of the high prerogative of genius to create out of its own resources imaginary characters, who shall be true to nature and consistent in themselves. Perhaps, however, the distinction between keeping true to nature and servilely copying any one specimen of it is not always clearly apprehended. It is indeed true, both of the writer and of the painter, that he can use only such lineaments as exist, and as he has observed to exist, in living objects; otherwise he would produce monsters instead of human beings; but in both it is the office of high art to mould these features into new combinations, and to place them in the attitudes, and impart to them the expressions which may suit the purposes of the artist; so that they are nature, but not exactly the same nature which had come before his eyes; just as honey can be obtained only from the natural flowers which the bee has sucked; yet it is not a reproduction of the odour or flavour of any particular flower, but becomes something different when it has gone through the process of transformation which that little insect is able to effect. Hence, in the case of painters, arises the superiority of original compositions over portrait painting. Reynolds was exercising a higher faculty when he designed Comedy and Tragedy Contending for Garrick, than when he merely took a likeness of that actor. The same difference exists in writings between the original conceptions of Shakespeare and some other creative geniuses, and such full-length likenesses of individual persons, ‘The Talking Gentleman’ for instance, as are admirably drawn by Miss Mitford. Jane Austen’s powers, whatever may be the degree in which she possessed them, were certainly of that higher order. She did not copy individuals, but she invested her own creations with individuality of character. A reviewer in the Quarterly speaks of an acquaintance who, ever since the publication of Pride and Prejudice, had been called by his friends Mr Bennet, but the author did not know him. Her own relations never recognised any individual in her characters; and I can call to mind several of her acquaintance whose peculiarities were very tempting and easy to be caricatured of whom there are no traces in her pages. She herself, when questioned on the subject by a friend, expressed a dread of what she called such an ‘invasion of social proprieties’. She said that she thought it quite fair to note peculiarities and weaknesses, but that it was her desire to create, not to reproduce; ‘besides,’ she added, ‘I am too proud of my gentlemen to admit that they were only Mr A. or Colonel B.’ She did not, however, suppose that her imaginary characters were of a higher order than are to be found in nature; for she said, when speaking of two of her great favourites, Edmund Bertram and Mr Knightley: ‘They are very far from being what I know English gentlemen often are.’

For our newer readers, we also point you to an eloquent post at Sorrow at Sills Bend which expresses an opinion similar to our own, minus the snark, if that sort of thing isn’t your bag. (Though if not, what the heck are you doing reading Jane Austen?)

Alert Janeite Amo let us know that BECOMING JANE will have its premiere in the UK on 4 March, 2007 at the Odeon Leicester Square in London.

Novelist, travel writer and essayist Jonathan Raban lists Emma as his second-favorite book.

Thanks to Alert Janeite Jessica Irene for the link!

It’s not! Unless you’re going to DO IT RIGHT!

BECOMING JANE: Having run out of novels written by the not-very-prolific Jane Austen to adapt into hit art-house romantic-comedies, what better idea than to make a movie about the 19th-century author herself starring the charming Anne Hathaway? (Aug. 3)

A better idea? Don’t put out a Made Up Story and try to shine us on that it’s anything close to a “true story.”

Thanks to Alert Janeite Jessica Irene for the link.

I LOVE YOU BECAUSE, a modern musical stage adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, has opened at Actors’ Playhouse in Coral Gables, Florida. The play will run through February 11, 2007. The Miami Herald reviewer had a great time. Tickets range from $38.50 to $46.00 and are available online.

(If this play sounds familiar, that’s because it was presented Off Broadway last year.)