Pride & Prejudice
22 February – 9 March 2025
Playhouse Theatre, QPAC
Pride & Prejudice, the mother of all romantic comedies, sashays onto the stage in a landmark debut for Queensland Theatre’s 2025 Season across two huge venues.
The dazzling adaptation of the sumptuous Jane Austen classic is fiercely funny, fiercely feminist, and fiercely Queensland, promising razor-sharp wit, bold artistry, and a tale as timeless and tantalising as when it was published over 200 years ago.
Steering the period piece are co-directors Bridget Boyle and Daniel Evans, the latter helming his first production since being appointed Queensland Theatre’s Artistic Director. Evans describes Pride & Prejudice as the ultimate love letter to the world’s original romantic comedy and the perfect production to encapsulate the love of theatre that beats at the heart of Queensland Theatre’s 2025 Season. “This is an ode to Austen’s tremendous wit and enormous heart but it’s also a celebration of our incredible homegrown talent. This show features an extraordinary Queensland-ensemble in an adaptation by two award-winning Queensland playwrights,” he said. “The comedy is razor-sharp, the romance is swoon-worthy, and the characters we all love (and love to hate) sparkle. Our writers Wendy Mocke and Lewis Treston have made Austen thrillingly contemporary–yes, the work is set in period but the stakes of the sisters, the plight of romantic love, still reverberates in 2025.”
Boyle, who first fell for Pride & Prejudice at 14years old and has read it every year since, said the chance to shape this production was a dream come true. “Pride & Prejudice is the blueprint for romantic comedy and Austen is the reason we have this entire genre,” Boyle said. “The question we asked ourselves right at the beginning was, how much have things actually changed for women? And the answer was: perhaps not that much. So that was our way in. From there, we really leaned into this idea of viewing Austen’s world through the eyes of a whip smart girl squad. They know they “have” to marry but they want something more.”
Pride & Prejudice marks the first time the state theatre company has opened its season in a regional venue, with Toowoomba’s iconic Empire Theatre staging two special performances on Thursday 13 February 2025. Following its Toowoomba debut, the production moves to QPAC’s Playhouse with its all-Queensland cast, promising to delight literary purists and seduce those new to Austen while delivering all the audacity, humour, and glamour of a “regency hot girl summer.”
Pride & Prejudice will also play at The Empire Theatre, Toowoomba, on 13 February 2025
For ticketing and further information, visit the Queensland Theatre website
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