Balthus was born on a leap year day

Although the play goes on stage on March 20th, Broadway World already has an article on Remy Bumppo's Brontë.

Brontë features Artistic Associates Gregory Anderson and Linda Gillum. The cast also includes guest artists Patrick Clear, Carrie Coon (as Emily Brontë), Susan Shunk (as Charlotte Brontë), and Rachel Sondag (as Anne Brontë).
Artistic Director James Bohnen will direct Brontë as well as a companion piece, On the Verge, or the Geography of Yearning, by Eric Overmyer, which runs May 15 through June 1, 2008. “Both Brontё and On the Verge explore the lives of audacious and extraordinary women whose imaginations soar above the restrictions of Victorian society.”
The Brontë design team includes Set Designer Tim Morrison, Costume Designer Judith Lundberg, Lighting Designer Richard Norwood, Sound Designer Lindsay Jones and Prop Master Ross Moreno.
The world premiere of Brontë was presented by Shared Experience in England and directed by the playwright. Shared Experience’s mission is to celebrate the connection between actors and audiences by creating a visceral “shared experience.” Brontё offers a unique theatrical style indicative of Shared Experience. Uniting both physical and text-based theatre, Brontё gives theatrical form to emotion and imagination. Audiences see the actresses transform into the sisters onstage, and fictional characters from the famous novels intrude on the action.
This is Polly Teale’s third play in a trilogy exploring Charlotte Brontë and her literature. She is also the playwright and director of Shared Experience’s acclaimed productions of Jane Eyre and After Mrs. Rochester, for which she won the Evening Standard Award for Best Director and a Time Out Award for Best Production.

What's very important here is that there's a special promotion to get 2x1 tickets to this play. Click here to learn more.

The Telegraph posts 29 ways to make most of today - a leap year day. We really like suggestion number 6:

6 Read a British classic: According to the Orange Prize for Fiction, we spend an average of three hours a day watching TV, but just 11 minutes reading books.
Dig out your old paperbacks, whether Hardy or Dickens, Austen or the Brontës, Sir Walter Scott or Dylan Thomas. For children, CS Lewis has just trounced JK Rowling in a poll of the best children's books of all time, so pass on your copy of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. (Judith Woods)

You can't go wrong with this one, especially after reading that appalling figure.

Artist Balthus was born on February 29, 1908 - 100 years ago - and the Mexican newspaper La Jornada celebrates it by publishing an article on him and featuring some of his Wuthering Heights-inspired works.

Many blogs have answered the Booking Through Thursday question on who their favourite female lead character is. Many of those blogs, too, have unhesitantly picked Jane Eyre. We particularly like Chris's reply on Book-a-rama.

And a possibility to travel - briefly - to Haworth from your computer screen: Life in Leeds has two posts on a recent visit to Brontë country with lots of pictures of Haworth and the moors.

EDIT: An alert for today, February 29, from Aldeburgh, Suffolk, UK:

The Seventh Aldeburgh Literary Festival
29th February - 2nd March 2008

29th February 11.30 am to 12.30 am Kate Drayton on the Brontes and childhood: ‘Our fiery Catherine was no better than a wailing child’ (Wuthering Heights).

Kate Drayton is a lecturer at the University of East Anglia. Her research focuses on late 18th and early 19th century literature and medicine. This talk will consider the representation of childhood in the novels of the Brontes, child psychology in the Victorian period and Mrs Gaskell’s influential biography of her ‘dear friend’ Charlotte Bronte, which has shaped the way we think about the childhoods of Charlotte and her sisters.

£8.00 in the James Cable Room at the White Lion Hotel. Coffee will be available.

Categories: Alert, Art-Exhibitions, Haworth, Jane Eyre, Talks, Theatre, Wuthering Heights,