After delighting audiences in 2025, Penny Ashton is skipping back to Australia-shire to present Promise & Promiscuity: A New Musical in Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne.
Flushed by thirteen years of sold out successes from Edinburgh to Adelaide to Toronto comes Miss Ashton’s collaboration with Jane Austen (deceased).
Join Elspeth as she battles literary snobbery, cousin Horatio’s digestions and her mother’s nerves, armed only with a blushing countenance, excellent ukulele skills and being quite bright, you know… for a girl.
In this hilarious, one-(freakishly talented)-woman show, Penny tackles all of Austen’s characters with song, dance and appalling cross-stitching.
Penny Ashton is NZ’s own global comedienne having performed over 1000 solo shows all over the world. She has represented New Zealand in Theatresports and Performance Poetry and has performed by invitation at The Glastonbury Festival and Jane Austen Festival in Bath.
She is also related to Jane Austen’s rumoured flirtation, Thomas Langlois Lefroy. She is his 5th Great Niece! (This story is told in Becoming Jane with Anne Hathaway). Since 2009 she has specialised in bringing literary greats to life in new and exciting ways.
“Penny Ashton’s Promise & Promiscuity was a joy. Fabulous acting, a wickedly clever script, and energy and fun from beginning to end. I didn’t want it to stop!” – Susannah Fullerton, OAM, FRSN (President of the Jane Austen Society of Australia)
Promise & Promiscuity: A New Musical will be presented at The Factory Theatre, Marrickville (21 & 22 May), The Street Theatre, Canberra (23 & 24 May), Newcastle Theatre Company (28 May), Stratford Courthouse Theatre (31 May) and Chapel Off Chapel, Prahran (5 & 6 June).
Image: Penny Ashton stars in Promise & Promiscuity: A New Musical (supplied)