ARTS ALIVE! Bill DeYoung with Stageworks' Karla Hartley & Katherine Yacko "Jane Austen in 89 Minutes"

In this week's Arts Alive!, host Bill DeYoung talks with the Karla Hartley and Katherine Yacko. Onstage through Oct. 11 at Stageworks Theatre in Tampa, Jane Austen in 89 Minutes is a fast-paced comedic farce that manages to compress all six of the 18th century novelist’s books into … well, 89 minutes. As the theater’s producing artistic director Karla Hartley is quick to point out during today’s Arts Alive! interview, the show tends to run about 92 minutes. Because, she says, the audience is laughing so hard.  Hartley is joined on the podcast by Katherine Yacko, who heads the six-member cast. Yacko is, indeed, Austen herself, who breaks the fourth wall to narrate for the audience, and to try to wrangle the wacky goings-on.

Wacky, zany and madcap are words that surface during today’s conversation. It’s the opening production in Stageworks’ 44th season, and although it’s a mostly-Jane chat, we also discuss how Stageworks is coping with less arts funding than usual, Hartley’s recent health scare and the four-year trajectory that’s turned Yacko into one of the hardest-working thespians in the bay area.

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