Emma Whipday, playwright. Photo courtesy of Compass Rose Theater.
This year will be Jane Austen’s 250th birthday. Over the centuries, Austen has amassed many fans from all over the globe. Whether they enjoy the Victorian view of culture or they see Austen as a writer who evoked the idea that women could think for themselves, they are a loyal group. For those of you who are Austen-philes, you will be happy to know that Compass Rose Theater in Annapolis will be presenting Emma Whipday’s “fast-paced, comedic adaption of Jane Austin’s ‘Pride and Prejudice,'” presented by Compass Rose Theatre. The production will be directed by Madeline Austin and produced by Barbara Webber.
“Pride and Prejudice” revolves around Mr. and Mrs. Bennet and their five, unmarried daughters and a litany of their suitors and misunderstandings along the way and inevitable happy ending.
Emma Whipday is a playwright and Shakespeare scholar. She has adapted three Austen novels for the stage: “Pride and Prejudic” (originally for the American Shakespeare Center, 2024); “Emma” (ASC, 2019); and “Sense and Sensibility” (with Brian McMahon, 2017; revived at the ASC for summer 2025). Other plays include “The Defamation of Cicely Lee,” which won the ASC’s Shakespeare’s New Contemporaries award 2019, and “Shakespeare’s Sister” (Samuel French, 2016), which won the Theatre Royal Haymarket’s Masterclass “Pitch Your Play” award and received its international premier at the ASC. It has been performed at universities, drama schools, and high schools internationally. Emma is Senior Lecturer in Renaissance Literature at Newcastle University, England. Her book, Shakespeare’s Domestic Tragedies (Cambridge University Press, 2019), won the Shakespeare’s Globe Book Award (2020). Emma also wrote the introduction to the new Oxford World’s Classics, Measure for Measure.
Can you tell us a bit more about yourself?
I was born in Sydney, Australia, to English parents who briefly emigrated. Both of my parents were from the North of England originally, and that’s where I spent most of my childhood. I studied for my degree in English Language and Literature at Oxford, and studied for my MA and PhD in Shakespeare at University College London. I have also taught at King’s College London, the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, and Brasenose College, Oxford. I’ve also had research fellowships at UCL and Newcastle University. Many of my previous plays have been staged at the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, VA, as well as in many schools, universities, and amateur performances in the US and UK. I now live in a beautiful, old market town in the North East of England with my husband and my toddler. I lecture on Shakespeare and his contemporaries at Newcastle University and write plays and books. I decided not to study or teach Austen because I wanted to keep her novels for pleasure. They bring me so much joy! Adapting “Sense and Sensibility,” “Emma,” and now “Pride and Prejudice” for the stage has been an enormous joy, too.
What drew you to want to do stage versions of Jane Austen’s work?
I love her work and adapting her novels for the stage offers an opportunity to spend time with her characters and explore her novels from the inside. She creates such a vivid world into which a reader can escape. Her novels are so well-paced and well-plotted, and her dialogue is so well-observed and funny, it leaps off the page. She shows her characters’ flaws and mistakes and hopes and fears with such an acute, but compassionate, eye, and the love stories at the heart of the novels still make me swoon. Austen takes the experiences and relationships of young women seriously—particularly the bonds between sisters and friends—at a time when they were so often sidelined.
I first co-wrote a version of “Sense and Sensibility” as a garden show at Magdalen College, Oxford, when I was a student there with my friend and collaborator Brian McMahon. I was delighted to be invited to re-write it for the American Shakespeare Center. They revived it this year, and also commissioned my two other Austen adaptations. I love that some people get to experience Austen for the first time through my plays, and I feel a responsibility to give them as much of the beauty and brilliance of the original as I can. I hope Austen fans like me get to share in the joy the novels bring us when watching my adaptations.
How does the stage version of “Pride and Prejudice” differ from the novel or is it exactly the same?
I’ve followed the contours of the novel as closely as possible. Jane Austen is a genius at narrative construction and her plots are beautiful and work like clockwork. I simply streamlined the plot so that it would fit in the two hours or so of running time while following the shape of her narrative. I also borrowed much of the dialogue from the novel. Her dialogue on the page creates the characters so vividly in the minds of the readers and I simply compressed it so that the language sings out on stage. Where I wrote original dialogue, I tried to reproduce the voices of the characters as closely as possible. Of course, there are scenes and interactions that I’ve needed to invent entirely, either to make the plot compression work, or because of the moments where Austen tells us about an interaction without ever telling us what the characters actually say. Austen makes the dangerously attractive, red-coated soldier Wickham so charismatic, but doesn’t actually give us much of his voice. I had to invent new ways for him to charm our heroine, Lizzie. I also had to invent the conversation between two male friends before a marriage proposal (I won’t say more of that, in case of spoilers!). Austen rarely lets us eavesdrop on her male characters speaking together, so I really enjoyed getting to imagine this private moment.
Jane Austen’s 250th birthday will be in December. Are you doing anything special to celebrate that date, either on your own or as part of a countrywide celebration?
The fact that my play is being staged by Compass Rose Theater in Annapolis, MD is a wonderful way to celebrate! Having my toddler means I won’t be able to see any of my favourite adaptations at the cinema or the theatre, but I’ll probably re-read one of my favourite novels. Pride and Prejudice and Persuasionare both particularly important to me.
Do you have a new project on the horizon?
I have two new projects, but can’t say much because neither have been announced yet! I’m working on a non-fiction book that blends cultural history and personal memoir, which I’m very excited about. I’ve been invited to adapt a wonderfully swashbuckling novel which should be huge fun!
If you would like to be part of the celebration of Jane Austen’s 250th birthday celebration, Compass Rose Theater’s production of “Pride and Prejudice” will be running from from November 14-December 14, 2025 at Maryland Hall, 801 Chase Street, Annapolis, MD 21403. For more information and to purchase tickets, please go online.
You can also view the The Jane Austen Collection at Goucher College, donated by the archive’s original collector, Alberta Hirshheimer Burke, a 1928 Goucher alumna. The College has more than a thousand early editions, books, and personal correspondence. “As the home for Jane Austen in North America, Goucher College welcomes all interested readers and fans to make discoveries about her life and authorship, the publication and reception of her novels, and her global legacy.” For more information, go to their website.
