A new production of Jane Eyre. The Musical opens tomorrow, July 17, in Cleburne, TX:
Book by John Caird Music and Lyrics by Paul Gordon Additional Lyrics by John Caird Plaza Theatre Company at Dudley Hall 305 S. Anglin St., Cleburne, TX 76031
With Addisen Bairrington, Nathan McCarthy
Based on the classic novel by Charlotte Brontë, this haunting and romantic musical follows the journey' of Jane Eyre, an orphaned young woman who overcomes hardship and heartache to find her own voice and true love. With a richly atmospheric score and deeply emotional storytelling, it's a sweeping tale of resilience, passion, and the enduring strength of the human spirit.
An exhibition at the Brontë Birthplace in Thornton:
Friday 17 July – Monday 7 September
This summer, the Brontë Birthplace is delighted to welcome Annie Lancaster and Kevin Jones as our shared Artists in Residence. Across eight inspiring weeks, Annie and Kevin will bring their creative practices into dialogue with the house, its history, and the imaginative legacy of the Brontës. Their work will be displayed throughout the Birthplace, transforming familiar rooms into intimate gallery spaces. Visitors can explore pieces in the Posh Parlour, the Scullery, and other corners of the house, each offering a different glimpse into their artistic worlds.
Over the summer Annie & Kevin will be joining us for a series of special events:
Friday 17th July, 6pm Private View Join us for the opening night of the exhibition, meet the artists and mingle at the Birthplace. Refreshments included!
Saturday 8th August & Saturday August 15th 11am – 4pm Meet the Artist Drop into the Birthplace to meet Annie & Kevin, learn more about their practice and see demontstrations of their work. Entrance included with a standard entry ticket.
Wednesday 26th August 10 – 12:30pm – Slow Stitch Embroidery Workshop Join Annie for a Bronte inspired embroidery workshop inside the Birthplace – ticket details to come.
A new edition of the Kilkee Brontë Festival takes place this weekend:
July 17-19, 2026 Cultúrlann Sweeney Theatre Dough, Co. Clare, V15 P960, Ireland
This year’s festival will welcome leading Brontë experts to Kilkee for a weekend exploring the family’s Irish roots, its often-overlooked family members, its portrayal on screen, and the homes and buildings that shaped the Brontës’ lives. The programme also includes a watercolour workshop, a participatory dance event and a guided Brontë tour of Kilkee.
Friday, 17 July Opening Ceremony
The festival will officially open at 6.45pm on Friday 17 July, followed at 7pm by a talk from Ann Dinsdale about her work and contribution to the production of the celebrated BBC film To Walk Invisible. Written and directed by award-winning writer Sally Wainwright, the drama explores the relationship between Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë and their troubled brother, Branwell. Individual talks are priced at €10, while a weekend pass costing €30 includes all four talks across Friday and Saturday. The film screening is free, and the watercolour workshop costs €30.
Saturday, 18 July 2pm: The Mother of the Brontës | Sharon Wright
At 2pm, award-winning journalist, playwright and author Sharon Wright will give a talk about Maria Branwell Brontë, the often-overlooked mother of Charlotte, Emily, Anne and Branwell. Sharon is the author of the historical biography The Mother of the Brontës. She writes for national newspapers and magazines and, in 2024, successfully campaigned for the correction of the Brontë memorial in Westminster Abbey.
3.30pm: The Brontës in Ireland or Facts are Stranger than Fiction | Uel Wright
At 3.30pm, Uel Wright will present The Brontës in Ireland,; Facts Are Stranger Than Fiction. His talk will draw on the influential book compiled by his great-great-uncle, William Wright, from oral histories concerning the Brontë family’s Irish ancestry. The audience will be taken into the early life and family background of Patrick Brontë, who was born in County Down, and will hear how the family’s Irish heritage may have influenced the imaginations and writing of his famous children.
5pm: The Brontës in bricks and mortar | Ann Dinsdale and Sharon Wright
At 5pm, Ann Dinsdale and Sharon Wright will come together to discuss their recent joint publication, Let Me In: The Brontës in Bricks and Mortar. The book explores the houses, buildings and places connected with the Brontë family and examines what later happened to these important locations. It has been described by Professor Kathryn Sutherland as “personal and poetic, authoritative and richly evocative”, while novelist Stacey Halls praised it as being “full of insight, compassion and exciting new discoveries”.The authors’ discussion will be followed by questions from the audience.
7.30pm Participatory dance event. Further details will be announced shortly.
Sunday, 19 July
The festival concludes on Sunday afternoon with a guided Brontë tour of Kilkee, exploring Charlotte Brontë’s honeymoon visit to the town and the landscape she so greatly admired.
The Bronte Society’s response was given to the recent statutory consultation CEP held on the proposals. The society said while they have a commitment to environmental sustainability and renewable energy, they “are strongly opposed to this development” with concerns about the Preliminary Environmental Information Report (PEIR) – a key document in the consultation on the impact of the development on moorland. Reporting details of objections on the Parsonage Museum’s social media, they said: “The PEIR does not contain the baseline evidence for any assessment of the effect on Bronte heritage of the proposal and simply claims that ‘effects on the Bronte-related landscape are minor and not significant.’ “We strongly dispute this claim: the moorland between Haworth and Hebden Bridge allows the literary tourist to physically travel through the landscapes of the Brontes’ imaginations and the worlds of their novels and poetry. “This link between the Bronte texts and the surrounding landscape was noted by Virginia Woolf when she visited Haworth in 1904: ” ‘I do not know whether pilgrimages to the shrines of famous men ought not to be condemned as sentimental journeys. “‘It is better to read Carlyle in your own study chair than to visit the sound-proof room and pore over the manuscripts at Chelsea. “‘The curiosity is only legitimate when the house of a great writer or the country in which it is set adds something to our understanding of his books. “This justification you have for a pilgrimage to the home and country of Charlotte Brontë and her sisters.'” “Woolf, along with the 70,000 visitors who visit the Brontë Parsonage Museum from across the world each year, clearly understood the inseparable connection between the local landscape and the Brontës, a connection which cannot be dismissed,” said the society. (John Greenwood)
Collider praises Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-García:
'The Last of Us' Meets 'Wuthering Heights' in This Near-Perfect Gothic Book. (...) Gothic novels will always be popular. Some of literature's all-time greatest efforts belong to the Gothic genre, from the seminal horror of Dracula to the timeless romance of Jane Eyre. (...) As the title implies, Mexican Gothic borrows from the rich tradition of Gothic stories to a T. There's a large, tetric manor, High Place, haunted by the ghosts of generations past and very much modeled after the genre's best-known mansions: think of Wuthering Heights, Thornfield Hall, or Manderley. (...) The Gothic genre has always dealt with themes of class and status. In classics like Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, class plays a major role in the central romances between Heathcliff and Cathy and Jane and Mr. Rochester. The differences in standing, background, and prospects complicate the relationship between these couples, allowing the Brontë sisters to provide some very sharp observations that remain relevant almost two centuries later. (David Caballero)
Araminta Hall, the author of Unrealable Narrator, fittingly chooses her favourite novels with unreliable narrators for CrimeReads: Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë Emily Bronte made a very interesting choice when choosing the narrators of this novel and it has always felt like one of the most important aspects of the story to me. Cathy’s servant Nelly Dean tells the story, but it is written down by Mr Lockwood who is renting the house where Cathy once lived. Both arrive with their own biases, Nelly because she was once from the same class as Cathy and then became her servant, and Lockwood, who feels outside the long established families who rule this part of the Yorkshire moors. The layers of unreliability run throughout, Nelly often not hearing or knowing everything that happened between Cathy and Heathcliffe and Lockwood often interpreting. And the brilliance of this lies in the fact that Wuthering Heights is a novel about being an outsider, so who better to tell it than two outsiders with their own scores to settle, just like Heathcliff.
Old men may remember what Charlotte Brontë wrote: “I do not think, sir, you have any right to command me, merely because you are older than I, or because you have seen more of the world than I have; your claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of your time and experience.” (Devendra Saksena) Haworth, West Yorkshire Over in Bradford, Haworth is a beauty spot best-known as the home of the Brontë sisters. The Yorkshire Moors that surround the village can be seen both in Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. (Jennifer Cartwright)
The Week recommends "punchy" books you can finish in a day:
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys Rhys’ “chilling, dreamlike” prequel to “Jane Eyre” explores another side to Charlotte Brontë’s “madwoman in the attic”, said Adrienne Westenfeld in Esquire. We meet the white Creole heiress, Antoinette Cosway, in Jamaica years before the events of Thornfield Hall. Isolated and lonely, she is soon “driven to despair” by the cruelty of her new husband Edward Rochester. Rhys’ book is just 176 pages long; packed with “gorgeous imagery and turbulent emotions”, it will roll over you like a “hazy island fever dream”. (Irenie Forshaw)
The Cyprus Mail announces a new production of the Greek adaptation of Wuthering Heights by Yannis Kalavrianos to be staged this Autumn in Nicosia: Under the direction of Achilleas Grammatikopoulos, Emily Brontë’s timeless tale of passion and revenge, Wuthering Heights, will arrive at Thoc’s Main Stage this autumn alongside a third Main Stage production which is yet to be announced. “Carrie” – No, not the Sissy Spacek shocker, but William Wyler’s deeply affecting and little known 1952 adaption of Theodore Dreiser’s “Sister Carrie.” As the wealthy married man whom Carrie, the small-town girl played by Jennifer Jones, falls for, Laurence Olivier gives perhaps his best unheralded performance. Olivier always credited Wyler, who starred him as Heathcliff in “Wuthering Heights” years before, with teaching him how to act for the screen. (Peter Rainer) More Recent Articles
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