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if you're familiar with jane austen or
even if you're not sensing sensibility
at everyman theater is a play you do not
want to miss
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i play eleanor dashwood she's the the
oldest of the three dashwood sisters
megan anderson is one of everyman
theater's resident actresses
she plays things a little closer to the
to the chest you know
she tries really hard to to help her
sisters and her mother um you know
there's no father now like in that time
the man
you know was the head of the household
and now he's not there anymore so
somebody's gotta
help them navigate this and she's trying
really hard to
help everybody out while she's feeling
all of these things she falls in love
for the first time and then that's left
unresolved for a very long time and i've
always been a fan of this story since i
was a teenage girl and was like
meadows and rainstorms and drama and
romance
but just like for the audience sense and
sensibility was new for some cast
members as well including fellow
resident actor jeffrey a russell who
plays love interest colonel brandon i
hadn't seen a sense insensibility
before i knew i was going to be on board
for this
and i had not read
any jane austen
previously before i started research for
this so
um entering the world of of this was
something very different
and
you know this this guy's
he's he's a good decent man
who um
is seeking love in his way
and there's a connection but it's it's a
very
quiet
uh
existence that he that he has so it's
it's fun to play that sort of thing fun
to play that kind of role and fun to
play in a production with a storyline
that moves in unexpected directions
it's not
sort of
wholly linear
you know
people who come to see it of course they
know they're coming to watch a play and
the way that we're presenting it that uh
suzanne our director has a staging it
it's it's very interesting it's very
theatrical and
you know it's fun if you think you're
going to be like in a stuffy drawing
room the whole time you are so wrong
it's like it keeps moving it's so funny
and so exciting
director susannah gellard i love this
theater it's just a really fun place to
work it is a place where you feel like
instantly at home and
it's such a family of artists it's so
special she worked in baltimore years
ago so coming back to everyman theater
was an exciting opportunity especially
now with the exception of directing one
play outside during the height of the
pandemic sense and sensibility will be
susanna's first time returning to an
indoor stage she says in all ways the
timing was just right
and there's this thing about austin and
about this adaptation in particular that
so completely gets at what it is to be
i think in particular a woman in a very
um
a society with a lot of expectations
but really anyone in a society that has
an idea of who you're supposed to be how
you're supposed to behave how you're
supposed to live your life
and looking at the play today especially
we find all of these connections like
the way that the gossips in the play
mirror exactly social media and the
sense that the world is always watching
you and you have to
figure out how to navigate all of these
people who are thinking things about you
and expecting things about you
but coming back to this play after the
pandemic it's so full of life it's so
full of a sense of
survival and excitement about being
together and finding love it feels so
special right now i am looking at a set
right now that looks amazing but it is
not done yet so tell me what the vision
will be for this room once it's done so
one of the amazing things about this
play about kate hamill's play is the way
that it manages to fit the entirety
of 19th century england into the tiny
little box of the theater and two hours
we travel from
the countryside to a different part of
the countryside to london back to the
countryside it has so many different
locations and that
journey and that kind of
um
all of that need to go different places
and be in different spaces public spaces
private spaces is a lot of how this play
functions
we joke that we are building a play with
incredibly heartfelt scenes around the
transitions between the scenes so i say
all of that because the way this
set works the way the theater works for
this production is very much about
transformation it's really an empty
space
that has um has the theater as a
container that we make into different
spaces it almost reminds me of
shakespeare in the way that it sort of
requires the audience or asks the
audience to use their imagination to
join us on all of the journeys
sense and sensibility runs april 5th
through may 1st but you want to get your
tickets now just go to
everymantheater.org we'll be right back
with more midday maryland right after
this stay tuned
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