Jane Austen wrote Sense and Sensibility’ in the late 1700’s / early 1800’s where the décolletage was in vogue, and Shakespeare was writing in the late 16th Century where women were entirely banished from
the stage. From the dawn of time, women have been portrayed as mothers, lovers or strumpets. Accessories to the male protagonist – the scabbard to the sword.
Purposefully, director Penny Ashton‘s shows all have female protagonists; they are women’s stories, with romance and sass. Penny is directing her adaptations of both Sense and Sensibility and The Tempestuous at Circa, where women are forefront on the stage.
Join Penny for an exclusive look behind-the-scenes of the world of theatre as she gives us an insight on directing two productions for Circa, as part of our Friendship Month.
Ticket holders to Sense and Sensibility on 31 July can cross the courtyard to Circa and go straight to the 6:30 pm showing! So why not book both and make it a double feature!
Penny Ashton has performed globally at Fringe festivals on NZ and abroad, represented NZ in a Poetry Slam tour of the UK, featured in a New York Poetry Club and won Best Performance by an International Poet at the London Farrago Poetry Awards. In 2012 Penny also started back on NZ’s TV screens as a gossip monger on Good Morning, and also a host on TVNZ’s Heartland Channel, as both host of Kiwi Gold and presenter of North and South Myspace. She is also a regular on Radio New Zealand National’s The Panel, dishing out her two penny’s worth of opinions and social commentary.
Since 2013 Penny has been touring her literary solo shows; Promise and Promiscuity: A New Musical by Jane Austen and Penny Ashton, Olive Copperbottom: A Dickensian Tale of Love, Gin and the Pox, and The Tempestuous: A Shrew’d New Comedy by Will Shakespeare and Penny Ashton, gaining sold out houses, awards and air miles as she goes. She has presented them from Edinburgh to Stewart Island and loves pilfering the classics to bring new untold stories in the style of these literary giants to hilarious life.
Image Credit: Emma Brittenden and the Court Theatre design crew.