Manydown

 

Manydown 1833
By George Frederick Prosser (1805-1882)
Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=50634218

May Meeting

Event:    JASNA CWNY May Meeting

Topic:    Manydown, a new Jane Austen play

               Performed by Sarah Rose Kearns & Laura Rocklyn

When:    Saturday, May 21, 2022 at 1 pm EDT 

Where:   On Zoom

Registration: Click HERE to register and receive a link

Manydown Manor was well known to Jane Austen. She and Cassandra were friends with the Bigg sisters and it was the place where Jane received her only known marriage proposal, from Harris Bigg-Wither. After what must have been a difficult night, Jane finally turned down the proposal and went on to become one of the most well-loved authors in the English language.

In her play Manydown, Sarah Rose Kearns imagines what that night must have been like for Jane and Cassandra. At our May meeting, Sarah Rose Kearns and Laura Rocklyn will perform the play, and take us back 220 years to a night that may have been a turning point in English literature.

The performers are both very accomplished Jane Austen fans. Please read about their backgrounds below, and join us at our May meeting for their performance of Manydown.

Performer Backgrounds

Sarah Rose Kearns is a writer, performer, and lifelong Austen enthusiast. She studied acting with Dan Daily, Ragnar Freidank, Austin Pendleton, and many others; and she holds a bachelor's degree in creative writing from Columbia University. Her stage adaptation of Persuasion debuted off-Broadway in 2021, while her one-act play Manydown, which imagines one important night in the life of Jane Austen and her sister Cassandra, has recently been produced as a radio drama, available to purchase through Audible. Rose is the most recent recipient of the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA) International Visitor Program fellowship; she will travel to Chawton, UK, in the summer of 2022 to conduct research for another biographical play about the Austen sisters. She is a frequent speaker on Austen and the art of adaptation, and has discussed her work at such venues as The Peabody Institute in Baltimore, The Jane Austen Summer Program in Chapel Hill, HB Studio, and The New York Society Library. She serves as a member of the JASNA committee for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion.

Laura Rocklyn (Jane) is an actress, writer, and Janeite based in Boston, MA.  Laura has performed with regional theaters across the country where favorite roles have included Lydia in Pride & Prejudice at Round House Theatre, Elinor (u/s) in Sense & Sensibility at The Folger Theatre, Elizabeth in Pride & Prejudice and Marianne in Sense & Sensibility at The Classic Theatre of Maryland. Laura has performed her one-woman show on Jane Austen, Who Dares To Be an Authoress? for JASNA regions and educational groups across the country.  Her original short play Emma is Presented in Washington City premiered as the Curtain Raiser for the JASNA 2016 AGM in Washington, DC, with Laura in the role of Louisa Catherine Adams.  Laura presented her one-woman play about Charlotte Brontë, To Do More and Better Things, as a part of the North American Friends of Chawton House 2021 Speaker Subscription Series.  She holds an MFA from The Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Academy for Classical Acting at The George Washington University and an MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College. www.LauraRocklyn.com