Laura Osnes, winner of Grease: You’re the One that I Want! and star of Grease on Broadway, will play Elizabeth Bennet in the Broadway-bound musical adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. Laura will participate in the one-night-only October 21 performance event at the Eastman Theatre in Rochester, New York. The other roles have been cast as well; Alert Gentle Readers will recall that producer Lori Bajorek told us in an interview that cast for this event will be retained for the Broadway production, targeted for November 2009, if schedules permit.

From the press release:

Producers of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, The New Musical announce that Laura Osnes (Grease!, winner of Grease: You’re the One that I Want!) will play the role of Elizabeth (Lizzy) Bennet in the Broadway-bound musical’s one-night-only performance at Rochester’s historic Eastman Theatre on Tuesday, October 21. Osnes joins previously-cast Donna Lynne Champlin (Sweeney Todd, Hollywood Arms, By Jeeves) as Jane Austen and Colin Donnell (Jersey Boys, Follies) as Fitzwilliam Darcy.

“I am so honored to join this terrifically talented cast and play one of literature’s most feisty yet beloved young heroines,” says Osnes, who recently completed a year-long run as “Sandy” in Broadway’s Grease!, after winning the hearts of voting viewers of NBC’s reality competition, Grease: You’re the One that I Want! She will also star in the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts’ Broadway: Three Generations on October 2 -5, before starting rehearsals for Pride and Prejudice on October 6.

Osnes’ fellow alumna and finalist in Grease: You’re the One that I Want!, Juliana Ashley Hansen (Saved, The Musical; Thoroughly Modern Millie, Nat’l Tour) has been cast as her sister Jane Bennet, while Mark Blum (Twelve Angry Men, The Graduate, Desperately Seeking Susan) and Patty Goble (Curtains; The Woman in White; Kiss Me, Kate) will play the parents of the five Bennet daughters. Anne Letscher (Fiddler on the Roof), Molly Ranson (August Osage County) and Jacque Carnahan (The Baker’s Wife) will round out the Bennet family as Mary, Kitty and Lydia respectively. Jim Stanek (Lestat, Little Women, The Rivals), fresh from Signature Theatre’s ACE, will play Mr. Collins, John Behlmann (Journey’s End) has been cast as Mr. Wickham, while Rory O’Malley (Happy Days: A New Musical) has the role of Jane’s suitor, Charles Bingley. Patty Goble’s dual role includes that of Lady Catherine as well as Mrs. Bennet, and Jennifer Waiser (The Pirate Queen) will play Lizzy’s friend, Charlotte Lucas.

The rest of the ensemble, playing the numerous characters in Austen’s beloved novel, include: Sarah Dacey Charles (Les Miserables), Jonathan Michie, Kat Palardy, Jon Reinhold, Matthew Schneider, Michael Scott (Follies, 110 in the Shade, Showboat), Libby Servais, Eric Ulloa and Marguerite Willbanks (Beauty & the Beast).

Tickets for the October 21 event are $35-75 and available by calling 585-232-1900 or online at www.ticketmaster.com.

We have three new Austen audio links for your listening enjoyment.

The CBC’s Words at Large podcast has reprised an interview from 1996 on “the Jane Austen renaissance.” It could have been recorded today (except they are talking of the 1995 film adaptations of P&P, Persuasion, and S&S). The participants are Fay Weldon, Marilyn Butler, and Claire Tomalin. Thanks to Alert Janeites Lisa and Joan for the link.

Alert Janeite Sarah sent us a hilarious skit from the CBC’s Mostly Water Theatre, the Jane Austen Drinking Game (that last link is a direct mp3 download). (And yes, it did cheer us up–thanks.)

We blogged last week about a radio play on BBC Radio Four, “Unseen Austen.” It’s available for listening on the BBC website but only if you have Real Player. (Grr. Argh.) So we can’t say if it’s any good. Thanks to Alert Janeite Laurel Ann for the link.

La Verkin Community Theatre in La Verkin, Utah, is staging a dinner theatre production of Pride and Prejudice on November 6, 7, and 8. The organization does not seem to have a website, but the Hurricane Valley Journal has an article with all the information you need. Tickets are $25. There also is a free show-only family production on November 10. The dinner sounds yummy.

We’ve blogged about these before, so as reminder and follow-up, there are two productions of Pride and Prejudice being staged right now: one in Edmonton and the other in Louisville, Kentucky.

The Edmonton production at the Citadel Theatre is a new adaptation that gets a very good review from the Edmonton Journal.

It’s the spirit that dunks us, without dreary exposition, smack into the whirling marriage marketplace that’s the English countryside of the 1790s — and, particularly, into the volatile five-daughter household where matchmaking is not just Mrs. Bennet’s hobby but her vocation, her obsession, her maternal raison d’etre. Whirling? The show literally revolves before anyone says a word in Bob Baker’s production, designed and dressed in glorious and lavish period detail by Leslie Frankish and lit, like gorgeous varnished oil paintings, by Bretta Gerecke.

The Times Colonist has an article about the young actress playing Elizabeth. The play runs through October 12.

Jon Jory is directing his own (much-produced of late) adaptation of P&P at Actors Theatre of Louisville, which opens September 30 and runs through November 2. The Courier-Journal has a short article about the production.