Women lead new, witty Playcrafters production

Girl power will be on bountiful display starting this weekend at Playcrafters Barn Theatre, Moline.

A new production of a new adaptation of Jane Austen’s “Sense and Sensibility” opens Friday, May 5, at the Barn Theatre, 4950 35^th Ave., Moline. The adaptation by prolific playwright Kate Hamill is directed by QC theater veteran Jennifer Kingry, and stars Legend Donaldson and Lena Slininger as sisters Elinor and Marianne, respectively.

The playful 2014 adaptation of Austen’s beloved 1811 novel follows the fortunes (and misfortunes) of the teenage Dashwood sisters — sensible Elinor and hypersensitive Marianne —after their father’s sudden death leaves them financially destitute and socially vulnerable.

Set in gossipy late 18th-century England, with a fresh female voice, the play is full of humor, emotional depth, and bold theatricality, according to a synopsis. “Sense and Sensibility” examines our reactions, both reasonable and ridiculous, to societal pressures. When reputation is everything, how do you follow your heart?

The Playcrafters cast features Craig Gaul, Elizabeth Melville, Thayne Lamb, Kady Patterson, Yvonne Siddique, Zach Zelnio, Mike Turczynski, and Emma Terronez.

“Like a lot of people, I like Jane Austen,” Kingry (the director) said Wednesday. “I’ve always wanted to do a stage version of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ and I probably have at least three versions of it in my little script library. But the problem typically is, you’ll start reading it and you love the story, but unfortunately, it calls for 25 characters and 17 sets and most of them are supposed to be luxurious English homes of the early 19th century and it’s not what community theater can afford to do.”

She loves the 1995 movie of “Sense and Sensibility” (starring Emma Thompson) and recalled the middle of a June 2016 night when she found a minute-long trailer for Hamill’s stage adaptation on YouTube.

“It had just been uploaded because I was the fourth person to view it. And it’s amazing,” Kingry said. “It was by an off-Broadway New York theater group called Bedlam. All the scenery was moving and it was just so fluid and it was very funny.”

“It was just this incredible way of presenting it. Everything was on wheels, even chairs,” she recalled. “And you could tell even in that short video that people were doubling characters.”  

A New York Times review of the original 2014 production said: “The would-be and might-have-been lovers in this enchantingly athletic take on the perils of Austen-style courtship, adapted by Kate Hamill and directed by Eric Tucker, find themselves pushed and pulled by the forces of speculation run rampant. The classic Austen preoccupations with real estate, income, class, reputation and equilibrium in life are all rendered brightly and legibly here.”

In the Playcrafters version, eight of the 10 actors (all but the main sisters) play multiple roles. Kingry is basing this one on the original Bedlam production, which co-starred Hamill as Marianne.

A veteran lighting designer and director at Richmond Hill in Geneseo and Playcrafters, Kingry’s most recent directing credits include “Silent Sky” and “Outside Mullingar” at RHP in 2022 and 2021, respectively, and “Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks” at Playcrafters in 2021. She made her directing debut at the Moline barn theater 20 years ago, with “Amadeus.”

Some modern sensibility

While Hamill kept the Jane Austen story in the year 1800, it’s somewhat updated in style – “It does have a bit of an attitude that reflects some modern sensibilities,” Kingry said Wednesday. “She has this concept of ‘Sense and Sensibility’ that these people live in a society in a time where you’re very confined by the sense of what society expects from you. And that also everybody around you is constantly listening in on you and gossiping about you.”

Austen is known as a very witty author and “when you read the novels, of course, so much of that wit comes through in the voice of the author and her narration — the way she describes events,” she said. “And that’s hard to put into a play because you don’t have the author’s voice.”

Kady Patterson, the star of Richmond Hill’s “Silent Sky,” is in “Sense and Sensibility” playing two roles – the mother of the two sisters, and a silly comic character, the sister of the woman who’s secretly engaged to Edward, the man Elinor is in love with.

“You’ll love Kady — she just was the perfect person to do that, to portray two characters that were so different,” Kingry said.

Kingry’s cast is pretty young (many in their 20s) and includes a Black actress (Legend Donaldson) as Elinor, sister of Marianne. The director supports color-blind casting.

“I really hope to see Playcrafters continue to try to just cast people,” Kingry said. “The difficult thing is getting people to come out. I keep saying, you know, there’s no reason these Agatha Christies shouldn’t have mixed races in them and the directors are open to doing it. It’s just people don’t come out to audition.”

Playwright credits

Kate Hamill was named 2017’s Playwright of the Year by the Wall Street Journal.  She has been one of the 10 most-produced playwrights in the country from 2017-2022. In both 2017-2018 and 2018-2019, she wrote two of the top 10 most produced plays in the U.S.; many of her plays have been produced internationally.

Hamill’s plays have been produced off-Broadway, at American Repertory Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Guthrie Theatre, Portland Center Stage, Seattle Rep, PlayMaker’s Rep, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, Dallas Theater Center, Folger Theatre (8 Helen Hayes Award nominations; Winner, best production) and more.

In addition to “Sense and Sensibility,” her adaptations include “Pride and Prejudice,” “Vanity Fair,” “Little Women,” “Emma,” “Dracula (a feminist revenge fantasy),” and “Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson, – Apt. 2B.” 

Hamill has written: “The play born of my love and frustration — Sense and Sensibility — has gone on to numerous productions in theaters nationwide, employing dozens of women and men in a female-centered storyline. I think its popularity is a testament to how many people — like me — are hungering for female-centered stories.

“The theater offers powerful opportunities for connection: with our past, with others, with ourselves,” she wrote. “I wrote Sense and Sensibility because I believe so deeply that the classics belong to everyone. When we ensure that narratives of all types can take center stage, we know that we can all be protagonists, no matter our gender or background or circumstance. We can be heroes — or heroines — of our own stories.”

For more information on Hamill, visit her website HERE.

Playcrafters performances (May 5-7 and 12-14) will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays and a 3 p.m. matinee on Sundays. Tickets are $15 ($13 for military and seniors) are available on the Playcrafters website HERE, at 309-762-0330 or at the door (while available), general admission only.