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Musical Anne sequel finding success off-Island

06.07.2008 15:00 Arts - Source: cbc.ca

Anne and Gilbert features stories from the books that came after Anne of Green Gables.(CBC)Anne and Gilbert, the musical sequel to Anne of Green Gables, is marking two new productions as its success grows outside of P.E.I.

The musical, which chronicles Anne's life as laid out in sequels written by L. M. Montgomery, was first staged in a tiny theatre in Victoria, P.E.I., three years ago. That original production has since moved to a larger theatre in Summerside.

Last year saw the first off-Island production at the Thousand Islands Playhouse in Gananoque, Ont. That production sold out and will return this August. Centrepoint Theatre in Ottawa will also mount a production this year.

Producer Campbell Webster, who got his start in theatre at the Charlottetown Festival, home of Anne of Green Gables — The Musical, by his own account would have seemed an unlikely promoter of another Anne production back in the early 1980s.

"Twenty five years ago I didn't think much of it, at least not publicly," Webster told CBC News this week.

"I thought, 'Well, this is not good theatre. This is not Eugene O'Neill; this isn't Hamlet. What's going on here?'"

When he began his career, Campbell Webster was an unlikely Anne advocate.(CBC)

But those were the thoughts of an "arrogant and pretentious theatre school student," Campbell said. Decades later, his arrogance and pretension put aside, Campbell became a lead player in bringing a sequel to Canada's longest-running musical to the stage.

"We thought this is a great play connected to a really popular character, and a really popular set of novels and movies," he said.

"We hoped, on a business level, that this would be something that lots of people would want to do and people would be moved by all over the world."

It hasn't gone international yet, but the show is seeing both commercial and critical success as it enters its fourth season. The entertainment industry trade paper Variety said the show should take a place alongside Anne of Green Gables. The Thousand Islands Playhouse production sold out almost every performance last summer. This year, that production will tour through 11 theatres in southern Ontario in August.

Webster is thrilled that this quintessential Canadian story should be finding such success on the stage.

"The whole idea of the large production musical, Canadian material, Canadian writers, Canadian topic, they just don't exist, or they try them and they don't succeed," he said.

Webster is hopeful the production will go international next year, with a possible production in Japan.

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Anne and Gilbert website

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