Alloy Theater Company to Open BRONTË in May

The Alloy Theater Company, a not-for-profit, performing arts organization, is staging a new production of award winning playwright William Luce's, BRONTË. The limited run engagement opens in May Off-Broadway at Theater 511.

Almost 25 years ago, the legendary Julie Harris stepped onto the stage of Marine Memorial Theatre in San Francisco, as Charlotte Brontë, for the formal opening of Luce's work, which was first written as a radio piece, "until Harris prevailed upon William Luce to adapt it for the stage".

This new production of BRONTË features Irish-born actress Maxine Linehan who was most recently seen in the first national tour of Bartlett Sher's Tony award-winning revival of South Pacific. Directing this one-woman powerhouse piece is veteran theater leader Timothy Douglas, whose long list of credits includes the world premier of August Wilson's Radio Golf.

Linehan, a corporate lawyer by training, abandoned a lucrative career some years back, to pursue her passion for acting and in the process became co-founder of Alloy Theater Company. First smitten by the acting bug when she began performing as a child, she landed her first professionalrole at 17 in the Irish Operatic Repertory Company's production of The Sound of Music. Now she is poised and ready to step into the tour de force role as Charlotte Brontë.

"This story of Charlotte Brontë speaks to me in a very personal way," she says. "I read the play one night and by the time I'd reached the final page I knew I had to bring this woman to life on stage", she adds. In researching the role, what jumped out at Maxine were the many similarities she and the famed author shared – both grew up in Irish homes with loving but stern fathers named Patrick. Both were elder daughters who lost one parent early on, and both had an overwhelming desire to pursue an unpopular and challenging dream.

BRONTË is based on letters written between Charlotte and her childhood friend and confident, Ellen Nussey. The play sheds light on Charlotte's fears, her need for love, her sense of loss and quiet suffering. Most importantly it casts light on the genius of the woman, who despite the repressive environment she grew up in, dared to challenge conventional wisdom that women "ought to confine themselves to making puddings….knitting stockings…..playing on the piano." Her fierce independence and remarkable imagination is perfectly relevant today. Almost 200 years after her birth Charlotte Brontë's writings are equally powerful and relevant anthems for the new challenges facing women in the 21st century.

The play marks Alloy Theater Company's first official Off-Broadway production. In its brief history the company has been responsible for the American premiere of Jacqueline McCarrick's The Mushroom Pickers and the first New York revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber's cult hit, Tell Me On a Sunday.

The limited run production of BRONTË A Portrait of Charlotte will start at Theater 511 (511 West 54th Street), a unique bastion for a new generation of artists. Previews start May 3 - 5, with opening night performances beginning on May 8 – 25.