Charlottetown – Anne Shirley wowed audiences in Toronto last month, and now she’s winding her way home for the 45th annual Charlottetown Festival. Principal cast members arrived in town and began rehearsals this past Monday, June 8.
“Rehearsing and performing Anne of Green Gables – The Musical™ in Toronto has made this the best Anne™ we have ever staged in my 14 years with the Confederation Centre of the Arts,” says Wade Lynch, a cast member and associate artistic director of The Charlottetown Festival. “In Toronto we could focus entirely on Anne™, and we were able to delve deeper into the characters. We do not have that opportunity during rehearsals in PEI because we have several other shows on the go at the same time.”
Audiences responded, with an average of 1,000 people attending each performance at the Elgin Theatre in Toronto. Total attendance for the three week run produced similar attendance percentages to what the Festival sees each year.
“The audience reaction in Toronto was so warm and so enthusiastic,” says Anne Allan, the production’s director and choreographer, and the artistic director of The Charlottetown Festival. “There were positive reviews and there were some negative reviews, but the most important gauge of our success was the standing ovation at the end of each performance.”
Allan also notes that the exposure that both The Charlottetown Festival and the province of PEI received before and during the run in Toronto will provide many long term benefits in promoting the Island in Canada’s largest city.
The successful run of Anne of Green Gables – The Musical™ at Toronto’s Elgin Theatre was a co-production between Dancap Productions Inc. and The Charlottetown Festival.
Half price preview performances of Anne™ are June 18 and 19. The show runs until September 26. Tickets are available at the Confederation Centre’s box office at 1-800-565-0278 or online at www.charlottetownfestival.com.
The Charlottetown Festival is sponsored by APM Group. Media sponsors for the Festival are The Guardian, CTV, K-ROCK and Ocean 100.
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Media contact: Dan Wall, publicist, Confederation Centre of the Arts, phone (902) 628-6135
Email: confederationcentre.com, web www.confederationcentre.com
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Ross Mair, PR Assistant, phone (902) 628-1864 Ext 315 Email: confederationcentre.com