Toronto:

Act 1

Jane Eyre is set in England in the early 19th century. The story begins with the death of Jane's parents (Opening). The orphaned child goes to live with Mrs. Reed, widow of her maternal uncle. Mrs. Reed and the childern treat Jane with cruel contempt. When she rebels, she is locked in a lonely room (Let Me Be Brave). She is then sent away to Lowood, a bleak charity school run by the brutal Mr. Brocklehurst (Naughty Girl).

Life is harsh at Lowood (Children of God), but here Jane meets two people who will have a great influence on her: a kind and caring teacher, Miss Temple, and a fellow-student, Helen Burns, from whom she learns the virtues of forgiveness and faith (Forgiveness, My Maker).

Jane grows up to become a teacher at Lowood. She advertieses for a position and is offered employment by Mrs. Fairfax, housekeeper of Thornfield Hall (Perfectly Nice) as governess to Adele Varens, young ward of the absent master of Thornfield, Edward Rochester.

Rochester returns to Thornfield and questions Jane about her past. As the weeks go by, he begins to reveal some of his own secrets (As Good As You). Despite his gruff and cynical manner, Jane finds herself drawn to him. A fire in the house leads her to suspect that Thornfield and its master harbour a dark secret.

Jane is beginning to fall in love with Rochester when she learns that he plans to marry the beautiful, wealthy Blanche Ingram. When Blanche arrives with her family and friends for an extended stay (Perfect Match), Jane paints portraits of herself and Blanche (Painting Her Portrait) as a reminder to
herself of her lowly station in life and of the unbridgeable gulf between Rochester's world and her own.

The visit of a mysterious stranger, Richard Mason intensifies Jane's curiosity about the secrets of Rochester's life. Both Jane and Rochester admit privately to their growing love for one another (Secret Soul).

Act 2

Jane is haunted by a dream that seems to speak of the past, but may refer as well to the present and the future (Dream of a Child).

Rochester's aristocratic friends remain in the house, now bored and listless. Rochester dons a disguise in order to test and compare the characters of Blanche and Jane (The Gypsy).

Jane is summoned to the bedside of the dying Mrs. Reed, where she learns that she has an uncle, John Eyre, who has been trying to find her. She returns to Thornfield to discover that the engagement of Rochester and Blance has been called off (Second Self). Rochester declares his love for Jane and asks her to marry him. Mrs. Fairfax initially opposes the match, but is won over (Slip of a Girl).

On the day of the wedding, Jane's happiness is shattered when the secret of the house is finally revealed. Unable to proceed with the marriage, Jane flees Thornfield and Rochester mourns her departure (Farewell, Good Angel).

Days later, Jane is rescued, sick and starving, on the moors by a young pastor, St. John Rivers, and his sisters. As the Rivers family nurses Jane back to health, St. John asks her to marry him and go with him to India, as a missionary (Morton). Jane is about to accept when she hears the voice of Rochester calling her across the miles of desolate moorland that separate them. She hurries back to Thornfield (A Silence I Hear) to find the house a ruin, destroyed by fire. Rochester, in attempting to
rescue those in the house, has been blinded. Jane finds him living at nearby Ferndean Manor. The lovers are reunited, never to part again (Brave Enough for Love).
 

Broadway:

Act 1

Narrating her story, Jane Eyre looks back on herself as an unhappy and mistreated child ("The Orphan"). Young Jane is an orphan barely tolerated by Mrs. Reed, the wife of her late uncle, and brutalized by her sadistic son, John.

Mrs. Reed sends the spirited Jane to a charitable school for girls run by the self-righteous and cruel Mr. Brocklehurst. Lowood Institution is a grim and unhealthy place ("Children of God") only made bearable for Jane by the presence of an older girl, Helen Burns, who shares with her a love of books, art and nature. Helen teaches Jane that forgiveness is all that makes life worth living ("Forgiveness").

During an outbreak of typhus at the school, Helen becomes sick and dies. Jane is comforted by daily visits to her grave ("The Graveyard"). She survives the school long enough to grow up and become a teacher there, but she yearns for freedom ("Sweet Liberty").

Jane obtains a post as governess to a young French girl, the ward of the mysterious Mr. Rochester of Thornfield Hall ("Secrets of the House").

The housekeeper, the chatty if slightly deaf Mrs. Fairfax, welcomes Jane to the house ("Perfectly Nice"). Jane quickly warms to her pupil, Adèle, and to life at Thornfield, especially after the appearance of the darkly brooding and sardonic Mr. Rochester.

Rochester explains the presence of his war, Adèle, and his dissipated past ("As Good As You"). Despite their differences, Rochester and Jane are drawn to each other, though their feelings remain unspoken.

In the middle of the night, a mysterious Figure sets fire to Mr. Rochester's bed, and Jane saves Rochester's life by dousing the fire with a basin of water.

Jane realizes tat she is falling hopelessy in love with Rochester ("Secret Soul"), but he seems incapable of returning her love, though clearly attracted to and intrigued by her. He invites several fashionable aristocrats for an extended stay and pays court to one of them, Blanche Ingram, a beautiful lady of rank who pledges her devotion to "The Finer Things."

When a man named Mason joins the house-party, Mr. Rochester is inexplicably shaken, and makes Jane promise to stand by him always ("The Pledge"). Jane hopes to allay his torment, which appears to be caused by the unnamed Figure on the upper floor of Thornfield, whom Jane believes to be Grace Poole, a close-mouthed seamstress. Rochester is in despair about his feelings for Jane, while she prays that she can bring him peace ("Sirens"). The inarticulate cries of the mysterious Figure from the attic haunt both of them.

Act 2

A sense of irrational attraction and dread is expressed by the Ensemble ("Things Beyond This Earth") as Mason attempts to confront the mysterious Figure and is viciously attacked by her. Mr. Rochester enlists Jane's aid to treat Mason's wounds, while telling her nothing of the cause of the attack. Rochester tells Jane he is to married, and she tells him in return that, if such be the case, she must leave Thornfield. Seeming not to care, he leaves the decision to her. In a moment of desperate self-honesty, she paints an unsparing portrait of herself, and a flattering one of the gorgeous Blanche ("Painting Her Portrait"). Out walking in the garden, the lovely Blanche calculates Thornfield's (and Mr. Rochester's) net worth ("In the Light of the Virgin Morning"), while Jane sadly contemplates having to leave them.

The listless houseguests are delighted when "The Gypsy" arrives to read their palms, but are so upset by their fortunes that they soon break up the party and go home. Rochester has chased Blanche away, and finally confesses his love to an incredulous Jane and asks her to be his wife ("The Proposal").

The happiness of the couple somewhat disconcerts Mrs. Fairfax ("Slip of a Girl"), but plans go ahead for the wedding. On the wedding morning, however, the dreadful secret of the Figure in the attic is revealed.

Rochester tries to hold on to Jane, but they both know her conscience will never allow her to stay by his side as anything but his wife ("Sirens Reprise").

Jane runs off, taking nothing with her and leaving behind a desperate Rochester ("Farewell, Good Angel"). The madwoman in the attic runs amok, setting fire to Thornfield Hall and luring Rochester onto the burning roof as he attempts to save her.

Alone and penniless, hungry and exhausted ("My Maker"/"Rain"), Jane makes her way back to her childhood home at Gateshead Hall. There she meets St. John Rivers, a young clergyman living in the house of her dying aunt, Mrs. Reed. St. John tries to reconcile Jane and Mrs. Reed, but despite Jane's genuine application of Helen Burns' philosopy of forgiveness, Mrs. Reed dies a bitter and despairing woman. St. John also decides that Jane would make the perfect wife for a missionary, and a reluctant but grateful Jane is almost ready to accept when she hears "The Voice Across the Moors." She feels she cannot leave England until she learns what has become of Mr. Rochester. Now a woman with her own money - inherited from her aunt - she returns to find Thornfield a burned-out shell. Jane discovers Mason there at the grave of his sister, Bertha Mason Rochester, the doomed madwoman of the attic ("Poor Sister"). Mason tells Jane of the fire, and of Rochester's sad fate. Reunited with Rochester, now blind and partially crippled, but a free man at last, they declare themselves "Brave Enough for Love."