Romantic ‘Jane Eyre’ musical to open in Moline
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
It’s all in the family (in some key ways) for the new Black Box Theatre production of “Jane Eyre: The Musical.”
Making its area premiere, opening Friday, March 15, the classic story has music and lyrics by Paul Gordon and a book by John Caird, based on the 1847 novel by Charlotte Brontë. The musical premiered on Broadway in 2000.
The Tony-nominated musical brings Brontë’s classic gothic romance to life as the audience follows the independent, passionate governess Jane Eyre (played by Kiera Lynn Martin in her BBT debut), through her harsh childhood after being left as an orphan to an uncaring aunt, through her employment as a governess at Thornfield Hall.
There, she meets the mysterious and magnetic Edward Fairfax Rochester (played by Joe Urbaitis), master of the house and warden of her pupil. Though drawn to each other (he’s 20 years older in the story), they are haunted by the ghosts of Rochester’s past, which threaten to enjoy any possibility of a future of love or happiness for either.
“This is the biggest production we have brought to the Black Box stage,” said director Lora Adams, BBT artistic director and co-founder.
There are 14 in the cast (pared from the original version of 34 characters). Each performer (except Martin and Urbaitis) plays multiple parts, with ensemble and at least one named role.
“It’s brilliant the way Lora has it set up, because anyone who’s offstage is behind the scrim and they can all sing,” music director Amy Trimble said this week. “It’s a beautiful way of maximizing a small cast in a big production, where we need voices.”
Trimble – who’s married to Urbaitis, whom she met putting on a Music Guild show in 2016 – brought the idea of doing “Jane Eyre” to Adams. She previously music directed “Clue” (when Urbaitis was Professor Plum) and “I Love You Because” at BBT, pre-pandemic.
Trimble fell in love with the sweeping, dramatic music of “Jane Eyre” before it was on Broadway, in a Canadian recording, after it was her favorite novel of all time.
“It has over 24 years, a couple times a year I would just need my soul filled with music and its songs just always did it,” she said Tuesday. “I have found it’s one that I go back to…It has so many songs, they’re simple and complex – which is exactly like the story and exactly like our set.”
Trimble knew the show isn’t well-known, and would be perfect for the 60-seat BBT, 1623 5th Ave., Moline, which likes to take chances.
She remembers having an abridged, illustrated “Jane Eyre” when she was in 3rd grade, and also has seen several filmed versions.
“There’s a romantic in all of us,” Adams said. “Especially when it’s hard to come by. Not every relationship you’re in works out.”
She greatly admires how modern Jane is in speaking her mind and that she finds her happy ending.
There’s a beautiful contrast between bigger-than-life Blanche (played by Shelley Cooper) and Jane, Trimble said.
Blanche is a rival for Rochester to Jane, and Martin loves the story being focused on women. At the start of the show, Jane is constrained by society and years to be free, after being a captive bird.
“She’s thrust into the world, forced to be strong and independent,” Martin said. “She always cares and has that soft spot inside her, but she has to be strong and independent to keep herself safe and make sure that she survives her circumstances, able to push through, see the world, and find her purpose.”
Trimble and her mother owned and operated WaterMark Corners in downtown Moline, which closed Feb. 10 after 25 years in business. “Jane Eyre” helped Trimble to recover during the transition.
“We started rehearsals in January and I would leave work emotionally exhausted,” she said. “It would be two and a half hours later, and it was the most beautiful, heartwarming experience. It came so easily – I know the show so well, I just knew it in an intimate way.”
“It was absolutely therapeutic,” Trimble said. “It really gave me like, during rehearsal for two and a half hours a night, nothing else existed. Very rarely does that happen.”
A penchant for orphan tales
Martin said she wanted to play the title role in part since Paul Gordon wrote one of her favorite shows, “Daddy Long Legs,” which she and her mom saw while she was I high school in Bloomington, Ill.
“He sort of specializes in making adaptations of novels into musicals. I’m more of a Jane Austen girl than a Bronte girl,” she said, noting he’s also penned musicals of Austen’s “Pride & Prejudice,” “Sense and Sensibility” and “Emma.”
“Daddy Long Legs” (set in early 20th century New England) is about the relationship of an orphan to her benefactor, who pays for her education anonymously. Martin also played the famous orphan Annie as a 7th grader in Bloomington, in that popular musical.
A 26-year-old now, she moved to the QC in 2022, after she started working at Circa ’21. Martin graduated from Western Illinois University with a degree in musical theater. She played Miss Shields in the past holiday season’s “Christmas Story” at the Rock Island dinner theater.
“When I was in college, I loved getting to do shows in our black box space – I loved the intimacy of it,” Martin said Tuesday. “It’s definitely different from being on the Circa stage, feeling I can directly speak to them. So much of Jane’s dialogue in this show is either narration or narration over the speakers, and this feels like the perfect venue for that, so close to them, like you’re telling them the story.”
Martin loved “Ride the Cyclone” and “Thrill Me” at Black Box.
“I have always been an obscure musical nut – always liked things more off the beaten path,” she said. “The world I’ve existed in post-graduation has been more commercial driven, regional theater. To get to do something more dramatic and driven, and not as well known, is great.”
Martin was in a Kate Hamill adaptation of “Sense and Sensibility” (straight play) at WIU and in the black box, did “Time Stands Still” and “Circle Mirror Transformation.”
She loves being in musicals and non-musicals alike.
The small capacity of Moline’s Black Box fits the intense emotion and personality of “Jane Eyre.”
“If we were further away, it wouldn’t be as powerful or moving,” Martin said.
“For being a small stage, it’s not a huge set show,” Trimble said.
A musical/life partnership
She also music directed Urbaitis, her husband (as Fagin) last April in Spotlight Theatre’s “Oliver,” another orphan-centric show. At Music Guild, the spouses did “Little Shop of Horrors” and met doing “My Favorite Year” in 2016. Urbaitis will return to Guild this August in “Fiddler on the Roof” in the lead role of Tevye.
“We’re often each in different shows,” Trimble said. “We go home and decompress. I can give him music notes at home after rather than here (at the theater).”
“I enjoy the emotions and the story, and the people are great to work with,” Urbaitis said. “It’s great story and great music.”
Adams is a big fan of the 19th-century time period of “Jane Eyre.”
“You just have a chance to create this entirely different world,” the director said. “Our season is pretty eclectic; we don’t tend to the same sorts of things, ever.”
This BBT season is all about love – “it may be dysfunctional love, it may be romantic love,” she said of comparing “Thrill Me” to “Jane Eyre.” “Even down to ‘All Is Calm,’ love of country. I had someone who was very passionate about music directing it.”
“If I’m going to be the one directing, it’s gotta be something that speaks to me,” Adams said, noting she’s seen many film versions of the story. Her favorite version is the 2006 PBS version, starring Toby Stephens and Ruth Wilson, billed as “The Greatest Love Story Ever Told.”
The BBT cast has told her, in most shows they learn blocking first and don’t deal with emotions until the end, but Adams takes the opposite approach. “It doesn’t make any sense to me to do a big sweeping romance, and have nothing behind it. We’ve had a lot of conversations about it, and that’s always very exciting for me as a director.”
Adams is also very particular about the performers’ clothes and hair.
Of Jane (who ages from about 12 through her 20s in the show), “she has such a pure heart, that it’s really the beating heart of the show,” the director said, noting her influence on Rochester. “It’s because of the way she is, that she gets him to be what he is meant to be.”
In the story, Jane creates her own family – a metaphor for the cast and crew of the Black Box as family.
“She’s like many of us, we create that family,” Adams said. “The people within any show, that becomes a family, and whether those relationships continue on forever, or just within the confines of the show, there is that sense of – it’s not just a team, but family and we’re all here to help one another.”
“I don’t think you can have really successful theater without having that heart,” she added. “That’s what we go for, finding that heart in all of this.”
Martin agreed that every cast she’s been part of has been very welcoming and supportive. “It’s a very unique and special thing,” she said.
The cast includes Shelley Cooper (Blanche/Miss Scatchard), Daniel Williams (St. John Rivers), Karen LeFebere (Mrs. Fairfax), Stephanie Perry (Mrs. Reed/Lady Ingram), Eden Myers (Helen Burns/Adelle), Em Foster (Young Jane/Louise Ingram), Kirsten Myers (Vicar/Col. Dent), Abby Berg (Bertha), Jacob Berg (John Reed/Lord Ingram), Doug Kutzli (Mr. Brocklehurst/Robert), Heather Lueder (Grace Poole) and Tyler Henning as Mason.
Performance dates are March 15, 16, 22, 23, 24, 28, and 29 at 7:30 p.m. and March 17 and 24 at 2 p.m. Tickets ($16) are available at the BBT website HERE.
For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WHBF - OurQuadCities.com.
