Excitement Builds for Brontë: The World Without
Excitement is building for the play Brontë: The World Without. A Youth Opportunities in the Arts production, with three performances at Arts Hub Brockville on the Main Stage June 19th 7:00 pm, June 20th 2:00 pm and June 21st 2:00 pm. You will not want to miss this!
I can’t wait. The Brontë sisters’ writing has always fascinated me, and a chance to see Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë onstage in the remote Haworth Parsonage is thrilling! Written by Canadian playwright, Jordi Mand, the play premiered at Stratford in 2018 to excellent reviews. Come explore the imaginative worlds the Brontë sisters created and the life they led together.
We are so fortunate to have young local actresses take on the roles of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë—young women who were passionate about their writing—and partly survived by being novelists to support their family.
These sisters, who lived an isolated life in Yorkshire, wrote their novels in the 1840s and received hard-won literary success. Charlotte originally published her novel, Jane Eyre under the pen-name of Currer Bell. (Best chance to publish was posing as a male writer.) Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights has been recently adapted as a film starring Margot Robbie and while the movie is a wild and passionate take on some of the novel’s themes, I’m hoping it brings new readers to Emily’s extraordinary novel.
The play, Brontë: The World Without, explores the sisters’ creative ambitions, relationships, obsessive need to write, and their economic and familial problems.
“Proudly presented by Youth Opportunities for the Arts, Jordi Mand’s, Brontë: The World Without is a haunting, emotionally layered stage play that imagines the inner lives and shared creative spirit of the famous Brontë siblings—Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, and Anne Brontë—as they navigate grief, isolation, and the fierce need to create.
Set within the confines of the Brontë family home on the Yorkshire moors, the play moves fluidly between reality and imagination. The sisters, along with their brother Branwell Brontë, conjure vivid fantasy worlds as both escape and expression—worlds that begin to blur with their lived experiences. Their stories and characters seep into their daily lives, reflecting their desires, frustrations, and unspoken fears.
As illness and loss encroach, the siblings confront the fragility of their ambitions and the limits imposed on them by society and circumstance. The “world without” becomes a poignant metaphor—suggesting both the external world they long to explore and the internal worlds they risk losing.
Through poetic dialogue and shifting timelines, the play explores themes of artistic legacy, sibling bonds, and the cost of imagination. It ultimately asks what remains when the creators are gone—and whether the worlds they built can outlive them.”
Sarah Pasquin plays the role of famous Charlotte Brontë, and is a St. Lawrence College’s Musical Theatre Performance student who last performed in Spring Awakening. Third-year student, Susannah Burtt, also featured in Spring Awakening, is thrilled to play the role of Emily who loved her solitude but wrote with passion. Aphra Reimer-Willis, a grade ten student at BCI, is excited to play the role of youngest sister and primary care-giver, Anne, whose writing and courage challenged the social structures of the time and advocated for women’s rights. Aphra has also performed in many school and community productions.
No theatre can happen without backstage talent and direction. Heather Istead directs the play, and Production Assistant is Allie Schmitt — who also manages sound effects and appears as brother Branwell, and the Brontë’s clergyman father. Produced by Deanna Powers.
Come to the west of Yorkshire this June! Visit these creative, talented women as they explore the intriguing world of Brontë: The World Without.
Or they can be purchased at the door!!
$15 Students | $25 Adults
Article written by Lois Lorimer with notes from YOA
From left to right: Aphra Reimer-Willis as Anne, Susannah Burtt as Emily and Sarah Pasquin as Charlotte