After Dinner 18th Century Theatre Event
The Spectre Bridegroom, or, A Ghost in Spite of Himself.
Jane Austen had a lifelong love of theatre, including plays she saw in Bath and at the Theatre Royal in London. She especially enjoyed comedies and laugh-out-loud farces. Few Regency Era farces got quite as silly as W.T. Moncrieff’s “Spectre Bridegroom,” starring some of the best comic actors then at Drury Lane.
Failed playwright Mr Nicodemus must put aside his groundbreaking melodrama on vampires to report the sad news of his cousin’s death to the heiress who was to wed the unfortunate young man… only Miss Aldwinkle has never actually met her arranged fiancé, and in any case Nicodemus is a “dead ringer” for the departed groom! Mistaken identity and local superstition combine to make for some supernatural shenanigans with a strangely modern bent– it’s like “Bridgerton,” but with Vampires (and there’s even a Jane Austen-style heroine to root for)!
For the 2025 Jane Austen Fest in Mt Dora, our professional Regency Players will bring this curated 1821 romantic comedy back to hysterical life, in a hilarious celebration of the theatrical world of Miss Austen’s day.
The Regency Players is a professional acting troupe made up individuals who have trod the boards from Broadway to Walt Disney World, now bringing theatre from the 18th and 19th century to our hectic modern world. The Players’ offering for the 2025 Jane Austen Festival is W.T. Moncrieff’s hit stage farce of 1821 “The Spectre Bridegroom,” a romantic comedy from a gentler, and apparently sillier, time. Under the management of Central Florida theatre director Sean Keohane, the Regency Players are masters of immersion and stage craft. In keeping with the period, they have all been trained to know what a reticule is, how to pronounce the word “zounds,” and the truth, universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
Date: Saturday, February 8th
Time: 8:00
Price: $10
Location: Mount Dora Community Center Auditorium
Registration now open.
Mount Dora Community Building Auditorium