Romance! True Love! And all of the twists and turns of Jane Austen’s most popular love story “Pride and Prejudice” will fill the Sterling High School Theatre stage this week. The school’s theatre program will present the Kansas premiere of a new adaptation entitled “Pride@Prejudice” at 7:30 p.m. this Friday and Saturday, Jan. 30 and 31, in the school’s theatre.
In playwright Daniel Elihu Kramer’s new version of the familiar classic, eight actors bring Elizabeth Bennett, Mr. Darcy and all of the beloved characters of Jane Austen’s classic romance to life with the author’s actual words. But the theatre’s fourth wall shatters when the cast Googles, Tweets and engages the audience through today’s technology. Jane Austen herself is a character in the play taking questions from followers on the internet.
Austen’s works, as endearing as they are enduring, created the prototypes for what is now called the romantic comedy, where the woman and man you know are right for each other have obstacles to happiness put in their way, to be resolved by story’s end.
Sterling High School theatre director Betsy Dutton explains “’Pride and Prejudice’ is really the first rom-com. Everything that follows can be placed on a graph with the axis labeled ‘pieces heavily influenced by P&P’ and ‘outright stolen from P&P.’ “
“In this new version, the narrative is interrupted and helped along by a number of modern voices, many of whom come from the wild world of the internet - blogs, chat rooms, YouTube,” she says.
“Pretty much anything you could want to know about Jane Austen, or her novels, can be found
online – Austen’s dedicated fans have seen to that,” explains Dutton. The script highlights the experience of engaging with Austen’s fan base about her novels, because “Pride and Prejudice” is a book that people love to talk about.  
The adaptation contains 29 characters: 20 of Austen’s characters from the novel, Jane Austen herself, and the eight actors playing all the roles. “One of the things I love about this script is that it’s inherently theatrical, the actors need to turn on a dime and keep transforming right in front of the audience. Plus, they frequently step out of character to comment on the action with their modern technology,” Dutton explains.
“A real concern for the playwright was how to appeal to the two distinct audience types that exist. The script needed to appease the appetite of the ‘Hard Core Jane Austen Fan’ as well as those who recognize the title but have never read the book or seen any of the numerous versions of the classic story,” Dutton says.
She concludes, “Die-hard Austen fans will not be disappointed and newcomers to the plot will easily follow the romantic adventures of the Bennet sisters.” Tickets for the Kansas premiere of “Pride@Prejudice” are $5 for adults and $3 for students and will be available at the door before each performance.