Staff photo / Andy Gray The cast of Kent State University at Trumbull Theatre’s production of “Pride & Prejudice” includes, from left, Tara Corkery, Daniel Amiot, Audrey Kukay, Brooke Jonas, Erika Scharf, Kim Gapinski and Raquel Allison.

If director Joe Soriano has any questions about the playwright’s intent while staging “Pride & Prejudice” at Kent State University at Trumbull, he only has to turn to his cast.

The adaptation of the 1813 Jane Austen novel was written by Cait McNeal of Akron, who also plays Caroline Bingley and serves as choreographer for the Kent-Trumbull Theatre’s production, which opens Friday for a two-weekend run.

Soriano is directing for the first time at Kent-Trumbull, but the Austintown native is artistic director of Twilight Theatre, which has staged Shakespeare productions at Modern Methods Brewing Company the past three summers. McNeal’s script is one the plays he pitched for the university’s 2025-26 season, and it was selected.

“Cait is very connected to the Regency and those Shakespearean eras, and she just adores the language and that world,” Soriano said. “There are lots of adaptations that skip over certain things, but Cait’s script really lets them breathe and actually gives the story a whole life.”

That love of the language meant that Soriano worked with McNeal to pare down her original script to a manageable running time and having ready access to the playwright made that process much easier.

“She has a novelist sort of mindset, and I very much was not going to have a three-hour production,” he said. “There was a lot of discussion about what parts to cut, what lines to cut. I maybe would make a pitch of cutting this line, and she would be like, ‘This one is very important because it demonstrates this or that, but we could cut this part.'”

Soriano has directed several Shakespeare productions locally and in the Akron-Kent area. Austen, like Shakespeare, is a writer whose work is centuries old but remains popular with contemporary audiences. This is the second local Austen production this year, following Trumbull New Theatre’s staging of “Emma” in January.

Her novels have inspired many film and television adaptations that maintain the early 19th century settings as well as more contemporary takes on her stories, such as the film “Clueless.”

Soriano believes there’s a timelessness to her work.

“There’s sort of an intimacy and a realness to a lot of my favorites of Jane Austen,” he said. “It’s somebody growing and learning. In ‘Emma,’ she starts off as a matchmaker, and she thinks that she knows what’s best. And throughout the course of the story, she grows and she learns that she doesn’t necessarily. Somebody has to check her.

“And then you look at ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ and both Elizabeth and Darcy have prejudices and pride and they’re sort of blind in their worldview. By listening and opening yourself to a different perspective, you learn what you were missing out on. And I think regardless of whether it’s in the Regency era or if you have a more modern adaptation, that is a timeless tale.”

Soriano drew on his theater contacts in northeast Ohio in casting the show. While there are many familiar faces to those who regularly attend Kent-Trumbull productions, McNeal is one of several cast members coming to rehearsals from the Akron area.

The cast includes: Erika Scharf, Harmon Andrews, Kim Gapinski, Cory Enriquez, Daniel Amiot, Tara Corkery, Raquel Allison, Audrey Kukay, Brooke Jonas, Dakota Smith, Connor Mast, Angela Huff, Michele McNeal, Nate Chapline, Jonathan Bahrey and Luci Spirit.

Those connections also came in handy for costuming. Soriano was depending upon the clothing — empire dresses for the women and tail coats for the men — to help establish the period setting.

The company they ordered some of the costumes from informed Kent-Trumbull they couldn’t be delivered until after opening weekend.

“We reached out to a lot of wonderful theaters that helped us out and let us go through their stock and get some period appropriate stuff,” Soriano said. “We, of course, borrowed from Twilight, but also Broadview Heights, Spotlight, Roving Rogues Productions, Western Reserve Playhouse. They really helped us out.”

If you go …

WHAT: “Pride & Prejudice”

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday through March 15

WHERE: Kent State University at Trumbull, 4314 Mahoning Ave. NW, Champion

HOW MUCH: Tickets are $15 for adults, $13 for students and senior citizens and $11 for children ages 12 and younger and free for Kent students and faculty. Tickets are available online atwww.kent.edu/trumbull/theatre and by calling 330-675-8887.