Hampshire-based publishing and production company 2TimeTheatre is on the look-out for local professional talent to take part in Meeting Miss Austen, which will be presented as part of this year’s Winchester Festival.
 
Local playwright Cecily O’Neill said: “I’ve taken Jane Austen’s teenage writings and turned them into three lively, comic plays which form the basis of Meeting Miss Austen.  Her talent for creating memorable comic characters is already evident and, in this year, the bi-centenary of her death, we are delighted to offer the premiere of Meeting Miss Austen in tribute to her genius.”
 
Winchester-based director Philip Glassborow said: “Jane Austen’s roots were firmly in Hampshire and we would encourage local professional talent to apply to audition.  We are looking for great comic timing, a good singing voice, and an ability to work quickly and effectively as part of an ensemble.”
There are parts for two females aged 20 – 25, two females aged 40 – 60 and two males; one of 50 – 65 and one of 20 – 30. Auditions will take place in May, and the performances will be at Winchester Discovery Centre on 8 & 9 July. If you are interested, live locally, and have relevant and/or recent professional acting experience or training, please apply with CV and recent photo to: [email protected] by 8 May 2017.

NEWS RELEASE
23 January 2017                   
The acclaimed comedy, Drinking with Dorothy – a Comedy in Ten Scenes by Cecily O'Neill is published by independent publishing and production company, 2TimeTheatre. Drinking with Dorothy is inspired by Dorothy Parker’s bitter-sweet reflections on life, love and alcohol in her poems and stories.
This comic play captures Parker’s razor-sharp wit and her disillusion with romance as Dottie introduces the denizens of the bars and speakeasies of Manhattan, bravely keeping her loneliness at bay with a regular supply of Martinis. Songs, waltzes, wisecracks and hangovers create a potent cocktail of entertainment inspired by one of the world’s most quotable writers.

Writer Cecily O’Neill said: “My aim has been to bring Parker’s characters to life in performance so we can encounter them in the flesh.  Inevitably, in any adaptation, much has to be omitted, but though narration and hilarious descriptions may be lost, what remains are the people – and the true tones of the native New Yorkers she lived among.’
 
Drinking with Dorothy premiered off-Broadway in 2015 at New York’s Players Theatre in Greenwich Village, and has also been performed in the U.K.

Dorothy Parker - a sparkling wit, a fearless critic and an award-winning writer of stories, poems and screenplays – who could refuse to go Drinking with Dorothy? I’ve been a fan of hers for many years but I first thought of adapting her work for the stage after attending an enjoyable reading of her stories in New York.

My aim has been to bring Parker’s characters to life in performance so we can encounter them in the flesh.  Inevitably, in any adaptation, much has to be omitted, but though narration and hilarious descriptions may be lost, what remains are the people – and the true tones of the native New Yorkers she lived among.

Parker’s ear is sharply attuned to the voices around her – and what voices they are – Lily Wynton the great lady of the theatre, Madam Marah the medium, the ladies who lunch on Martinis, and, of course, Dottie herself, hungover and struggling to meet her deadlines.

Parker may mock her characters’ absurdity and affectations, but there is always a sense of compassion for their vulnerability as they try to keep fear and loneliness at bay with wisecracks and alcohol.

It’s been a delight to go 'Drinking with Dorothy'!
 
Cecily O’Neill

13 December 2016
Premiere of Meeting Miss Austen – a performance based on Jane Austen’s teenage writings

Hampshire-based theatre company, 2TimeTheatre, presents the world premiere of Meeting Miss Austen by local author Cecily O'Neill at the Winchester Discovery Centre as part of the 2017 Winchester Festival, and supported by a Cultural Grant from Winchester City Council.

In these plays, based on Austen’s Juvenilia, we hear the voice of the teenage Jane; exuberant, saucy and often surreal in tales of love, loss, vice and victuals: 'The company partook of an elegant entertainment. After which, the bottle being pretty briskly pushed about, the whole party was carried home dead drunk.' (Jack and Alice).  Meeting Miss Austen is published by 2TimeTheatre February 2017.

Cecily O’Neill, Artistic Director of 2TimeTheatre, said: “As we approach the anniversary of the death of Jane Austen, I thought it would be fascinating to dramatise some of her earliest writings, and reveal the development of her genius for dialogue, social satire, and wit.

2TimeTheatre will stage two performances of Meeting Miss Austen including songs and music as part of the 2017 Winchester Festival at Winchester Discovery Centre and promoted by Jane Asuten 200 on Saturday 8 July 2017 at 8:00pm and Sunday 9 July 2017 3:00pm.  Tickets are £10 and £5 for 18s and under.  Box office is on: 01962 857276. 

For more information, please contact:
Rachel O’Neill
07821879094
[email protected]

We filmed our first video promo for Young Jane earlier this week.  The weather was relatively kind and our talented actor Emily Pacey made a great job of the proposal speech from the play The Three Sisters.

We sneaked into the Bishop's Garden to film as our preferred location just opposite the Jane Austen House in College Street was just too noisy; no, not with vocal JA fans, but from the building site noise coming from the end of the street!

Hoping to be able to share the video with you very soon.

2TimeTheatre's first publication Young Jane - three plays inspired by Jane Austen's Juvenili, is now available on Kindle.  Jane Austen fans around the world can now read these lively and witty plays on their devices.

Jane Austen: A dramatic new take from new publisher 2TimeTheatre
15 September 2016

Young Jane, is published on 15 September 2016 and is the first publication by Winchester-based 2TimeTheatre,  a new type of publisher dedicated to re-imagining classic and original texts for the stage.  Young Jane includes three plays inspired by Jane Austen’s teenage writings or Juvenilia.
 
Jane Austen's fame is a worldwide phenomenon.  Her six much-loved novels have been adapted many times over for stage, film and television, but her teenage writing is often overlooked. Young Jane adapts three of her hilarious stories, full of accidents, abductions and adultery, for performance.
 
Internationally renowned drama consultant and founder of 2TimeTheatre, Cecily O’Neill, created these three plays. Previous adaptations include ‘Venus and Adonis’, for Winchester Festival 2016, ‘Drinking with Dorothy’, performed at Players Theatre New York 2015, and ‘The Golden Apple’, part of the Dublin Theatre Festival 2008.
 
Cecily said: “These exuberant adaptations introduce us to the young Jane Austen and hint at the extraordinary writer she was to become. As she ridicules the improbable events and exaggerated sentiments of the popular romances of her day in these youthful pieces, her mastery of dialogue and acute social observation foreshadow the achievements of her classic novels.”
 
About 2TimeTheatre
 
2TimeTheatre is based in Winchester and exists to take classic or original stories, myths, novels, and poems, and to re-imagine them for the stage.  Young Jane is the first publication in a series that will include Drinking with Dorothy, sketches created from Dorothy Parker’s stories, a one-act play, Tryst, inspired by one of Edith Wharton’s best-known works, Roman Fever, and further Jane Austen-inspired dramas to be published early next year.
 
www.2timetheatre.com