When Madeline Austin saw a live adaptation of “Pride & Prejudice” last year at the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, Virginia, Jane Austen’s humor and wit leapt from the stage — they were even more prominent than they had been in the books.

So, Austin acknowledged, she had to mount the adaptation at her own Compass Rose Theater, the professional teaching theater where she was named artistic director in June .

It just so happens that this year marks Austen’s 250th birthday. (She was born Dec. 16, 1775.) And that the playwright, Emma Whipday, is named for the heroine of another Austen work.

Whipday, an English playwright and lecturer at Newcastle University specializing in Shakespeare and Renaissance literature, said she was exposed to Austen’s work from a young age.

“I think it

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