Charming suitors, meddlesome mothers, tight breeches and surprisingly well-educated girls will be characterised on stage by seasoned performers Penny Ashton, Lori Dungey and Jamie Burgess, who will swoon, romp and pianoforte their way through an entirely improvised musical.
Austenfound features audience interaction as a key element — the cast ask the audience to suggest the show’s title, name of the lead characters, and the setting, giving each performance a spin unique to the audience.
"We take all of that and incorporate it into a Jane Austen story of about 30 minutes. And it’s got songs to determine everything. All of the lyrics, the music, the dialogue is all made up," Ashton said.
"It’s a lot of silly fun basically, which is good in these times, we think. Well, particularly with an election. That’s bearing down on us. So it’s quite nice to have some escapism and silliness."
Ashton has a storied background in the performing arts, and has previously toured several Jane Austen-inspired performances, including Olive Copperbottom, Promise and Promiscuity, and Sense and Sensibility.
She has been performing with fellow Austenfound cast member Dungey for 15 years.
Dungey has been acting for more than 40 years and is the Education Director for the Theatresports Youth Programme in Auckland — audience members may recognise her from Lord of the Rings, Xena, and most recently as the nosy neighbour in M3gan, directed by Invercargill’s Gerard Johnstone.
Burgess is a recent addition to the duo, and provides the music for the show — all entirely improvised, of course.
"When you improvise songs and improvise content, it’s actually quite magical," he said.
Mr Burgess has previously toured with the Canterbury Opera, been a cast member of Children of Eden, and toured with several independent theatre companies over the years, most notably for the 2008 Auckland Festival hit Sleep/Wake.
Despite the Austen-inspired setting, Austenfound audience members did not require an intensive familiarity with her work to appreciate the show, Ashton said.
"They’ll be able to get a lot of the jokes ... Most people know that it involves marriage and cups of tea, basically ... And there is a lot of innuendos, there’s a lot of comedy that comes out of that," Ashton said.
The trio were excited to finally get the tour under way, after two previous false-starts that were hampered by Covid restrictions, she said.
"So we have been rehearsing for four years basically, and we are so excited we’re basically popping out of our skin."
The Invercargill performance of Austenfound is on Wednesday, September 13 at 7.30pm at the Scottish Hall, Esk St, Invercargill.
Tickets are $35 and available from ticketek.co.nz.
