Actress Jennie Greenberry says portraying the romantic heroine on the Oregon Shakespeare Festival stage is a dream come true

By Jim Flint

The allure of a period piece is due in part to its atmospheric setting, complex characters, romantic idealism and the opportunity to escape to a different time and place.

For actor Jennie Greenberry, stepping into the world of a sweeping gothic romance like “Jane Eyre” is the fulfillment of a lifelong dream.

She returned to Ashland’s Oregon Shakespeare Festival this year to portray the story’s title character, one of the most beloved heroines in literary history. It’s Greenberry’s sixth season at OSF.

The West Coast premiere of “Jane Eyre” is playing through Oct. 11 at the Allen Elizabethan Theatre. Adapted by Elizabeth Williamson from the novel by Charlotte Bronte, it is directed by Dawn Monique Williams, who helmed the company’s lush 2023 staging of “Twelfth Night.”

“Jane is the kind of person I deeply admire and strive to be,” Greenberry said. “So, of course I jumped at the chance to portray her. I love that she’s so self-assured and maintains her personal integrity, regardless of the situations in which she finds herself.”

Greenberry also respects her character’s character. Although Jane has experienced a lot of trauma for someone so young, she doesn’t let that dim her kindness, compassion, joy or curiosity.

“She possesses the kind of strength I think few people have, and I love getting to explore that,” Greenberry said.

Critical praise

In a July 4 review of the play in Oregon ArtsWatch, Darleen Ortega had praise for the play, its direction, and for the cast.

“As directed by Dawn Monique Williams, and featuring two charismatic leads, OSF’s ‘Jane Eyre’ is a swoony romance with a captivating heroine,” she wrote. “Jennie Greenberry embodies Jane’s remarkable clarity and natural ability to question what was thought unquestionable during her time.”

Although Greenberry is older than the literary Jane’s 18 years, she values being able to draw from more life experiences for the role.

“The highs and lows I’ve encountered over the years have allowed me to access a much deeper, more richly developed emotional life as an actor than I could ever have brought to the role as a teenager.”

Greenberry’s preparation for the role involved digging into both the script and the novel.

Rather than studying the entire novel, however, she concentrated on the passages from Bronte’s work that are covered in the play’s scenes.

“There’s only so much information that’s useful to an actor before it becomes burdensome rather than helpful,” she said.

There are many details about Jane in the novel that aren’t relevant to the play. Greenberry didn’t want to muddy the performance by trying to include them all in her portrayal.

“Specificity is an actor’s best friend,” she said. “So, I made sure to mine only the passages in the book that we present in our play.”

Musicals her first love

Greenberry’s other productions at OSF have included four musicals: “Into the Woods,” “The Wiz,” “Cocoanuts” and “Beauty and the Beast.” She even played the cello in “Pericles.”

Does she prefer one genre over another?

“In the beginning of my career, I would have said musicals. However, now I truly don’t have a preference. What I value most in any production is getting to tell a well-crafted story with artisans I love and trust,” she said.

Some of her favorite OSF roles, besides the current one as Jane Eyre, were Belle in “Beauty and the Beast,” Rosaline in “Love’s Labor’s Lost,” and Cinderella in “Into the Woods.”

Greenberry is currently based in Los Angeles. She was born in Glendale, California, and grew up in St. Louis.

Her first time on stage was in the fourth grade in a musical production of the Lewis and Clark story as (“drumroll, please,” she said) one of the three backup-singing pups for Captain Lewis’s dog.

In high school, she was a full-fledged drama nerd, but when it was time for college, she wasn’t sure what she wanted to study. Her mom helped clarify that for her.

“I was somewhat adrift and unsure of what degree to pursue,” she said. “My sweet momma asked me what it was that made me light up from the inside. I answered, ‘theater.’”

She was a little terrified at the thought of pursuing acting as a profession, but her mom set her straight.

Good advice

“She reminded me that as people of faith, ‘we don’t make decisions based on fear in this house. If you want to study theater, then let’s find you a theater school.’ So off to theater school I went.”

She earned a bachelor of fine arts from Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri.

During her career, she has acted off-Broadway and in many regional theaters. She first came to OSF in 2014.

“Coming to this town and company was like falling through the back of the wardrobe and into Narnia,” she said. “It was pure magic to me. It still is.”

People might be surprised to know that she almost pursued a career in medicine.

“For quite a while, I thought about getting a Bachelor of Science degree and becoming a nurse,” she said. “My mom likes to joke that there’s still time for me to do that if I ever change my mind.”

But for now, acting appears to be just what the doctor ordered — to the delight of both Greenberry and her fans.

Reach writer Jim Flint at [email protected].