Anne – Need Peace? Go East!

Anne of Greeen Gables

Posted on 2014/07/08 by Guy Posted in Anne of Green Gables .

Every year, we go see Anne of Green Gables. it has become one of our regular summer treats. This year, we were presented with the many faces of Anne:

16 talented performers have played the role of Anne in its 50 years in Charlottetown.

It has received the honour being the longest running musical performance in the World.

Every year we see Anne, and every year we are delightfully rewarded with an enchanting performance, somehow always better than last year.

The newly renovated Confederation Centre of the Arts makes viewing the performance even more enjoyable with better seating, better lighting, and more use of audio visual effects.

Anne, Marilla and Matthew are outstanding in their roles. The rest of the crew is equally talented. The dance routines are full of energy, the singing is superb and the performances captivating. Other than the inevitable sad ending, I cannot think of anything to make the performance any better. Yet I expect that next year I will be rewarded with some more surprises.

Be sure to include a Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday in your trip to Prince Edward Island so you will not miss this wonderful performance.

I remain a truly loyal Anne of Green Gables fan.

Lucy Maud Montgomery

Posted on 2011/04/15 by Guy Posted in Anne of Green Gables .

Lucy Maud Montgomery is one of Prince Edward’s Icons. Her name is inseparable from Anne of Green Gables and she is one of the main reasons many people love PEI. Born in 1874, she was an Islander through and through. She was a teacher…do you remember Anne became a teacher also. She was born in what is now called New London, She lived for some time in Cavendish and she also visited her relatives in Park Corner frequently. It is rumoured that Park Corner was the site of her inspiration to write. From her cousin’s home, you can see the “lake of shining waters.”

anne of green gables

After working for a Halifax newspaper for a short time, she returned to PEI and wrote poetry that she struggled to get published. In 1905 she wrote Anne of Green Gables but was unable to get it published. What I understand is that “Lucy” could not get recognition as a woman but when she tried with another publisher under the ambiguous gender “L. M. Montgomery”, she found a receptive ear and became an instant success.

imagine anne

Lucy was an avid scrapbooker. In 2008, on the hundredth anniversary of the publication of her first book, there was a release of a souvenir album that featured some of her scrapbooks: Imagine Anne. I believe you can also see her original scrapbooks at her birthplace in New London.

licenced anne

After Lucy died in 1942, the heirs took care of preserving her memory. One of the ways they ensure this is by licencing “Anne” products. This means that you cannot offer anything proposing to be “Lucy” or “Anne” without obtaining permission from the heirs. So that is why you will see, on several places on the Island, logos that say: Licenced Anne Products. Here are a few examples:

The Shining Waters Giftshop in Park Corner is part of the Anne of Green Gables Museum. They sell a variety of “Anne” themed products.

anne of green gables store

The Anne of Green Gables Store is located in downtown Charlottetown. They also have an online store where you can purchase dolls, books, music, gifts, etc.

The government website lists several vendors on their website where you can research your ANNE products.

And in doing my research, I came upon another blog: Trails of Hats’n Hospitalitea where today they talk about the scrapbooking Experience: “Then because I’m a L.M. Montgomery fan, we have developed an experience for the garden loving, tea sipping, scrapbooking artsy kind of person.” I found another Scrapbooking and Lucy Maud Montgomery enthusiast.

I hope you enjoy Lucy Maud Montgomery as much as I do. Tune in tomorrow for M=Music.

Granny ~oo~

Anne of Green Gables

Posted on 2011/04/10 by Guy Posted in Anne of Green Gables .

Anne of Green Gables will never die are part of the lyrics written by Elaine Campbell who passed away in 2007. These words live on since 1965 when the “Anne” mtusical started playing and continues to play yearly at the Confederation Centre of the Arts in Charlottetown. This year the production runs on selected dates from June 28 to August 31.

If you are an Anne of Green Gables fan, you can join thousands who come to PEI to experience Anne. 2008 marked the 100th Anniversary of the publication of Anne of Green Gables. The department of Tourism published for the occasion a passport that featured Several attractions including:

Cavendish Figurines

Located in the Gateway village as you enter Prince Edward Island from the Confederation Bridge, Cavendish Figurines is full of Anne memorabilia.

L.M. Montgomery Lower Bedeque School

This museum is a recreation of the schoolhouse where LMM taught in 1897.

Bideford Parsonage Museum

This home is where LMM boarded during her first year teaching.

Anne of Green Gables the Musical

Anne and Gilbert the Musical

This musical is set during the period Anne was in school. It started running in 2005 in a small theatre in Victoria by the Sea but its popularity dictated that it move to a larger venue. Now in the Harbourfront Theatre in Summerside, where it runs on selected days from June 14 to September 25.

Kensington Historic Train Station

Trains are no more on Prince Edward Island. The rail bed was converted to a cycling trail, but that is the subject of other posts on this blog. This station resembles the one where Anne sat waiting fro Matthew to pick her up.

Anne of Green Gables Museum

Located in Park Corner, the Museum at Silverbush is where I saw the lake of shining waters and the blue trunk that are featured in the novel.

Lucy Maud Montgomery Birthplace

This house is located in New London and is operated by volunteers. I have not located a website but there is information about it on the heritage society. You can also look them up in the visitor’s guide under attractions new London.

Avonlea Village Cavendish PEI

Avonlea Village

The Avonlea Village of Anne of Green Gables in Cavendish Prince Edward Island is like a pioneer village where you can see structures, dress, and activities of the early 1900’s. You will also see several short skits that replay scenes akin to the Anne of Green Gables novel. This can be a full-day event for the whole family.

The Montgomery Theatre

Located in the Avonlea village, this is yet another theatre where you might feel the presence of Anne.

Green Gables House

Also, located in Cavendish, Green Gables House sits as a museum commemorating what life might have been like for Anne, Marilla and Matthew. Within the National park, this site can be viewed for a modest fee. Remember on a nice day to walk down the hill and stroll through the haunted woods. You can also take a walk down another trail from the back of the house (where the well is located).

Lucy Maud Montgomery Cavendish Homestead

LM Montgomery’s Cavendish Home

Designated as a Canadian National Historic Site, the site of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Cavendish Home marks where Alexander and Lucy Macneill, raised their granddaughter. From the back of the home’s site, you can walk the path towards towards the Green Gables Post Office where you can mail yourself a letter or post card from CAVENDISH.

Rest assured that Cavendish is real, the House at Green Gables is real, and that Anne of Green Gables lives in the heart of millions of devoted followers.

Granny ~oo~

The Island Scrapbooks Anne of Green Gables

Posted on 2011/03/19 by Guy Posted in Crafts .

L.M. Montgomery kept scrapbooks all her life in addition to her letters, poems, short stories and journals.

As I turn the pages and look at the style of scrapbooker that L.M. Montgomery my imagination is telling a story. I hear the thoughts in my mind as I see pieces of scrap fabric, splinters of wood, and yellowed paper invitations.

The story begins to unfold. At a mature age of 14, I see her standing in front of many onlookers. Her pastoral dress is handmade from recycled woolen grey material and she wears it proudly. Ready to recite she stand steady straight and tall. The first words won’t come, embarrassed she runs out of the church and down the two wooden cracked steps and stops short of an oak tree, beneath her feet a small patch of pansies.

Her scrapbooks have a few bits pasted into them of splinters from those steps, pieces of material, a large oak leaf and a beautiful pansy. This can all be seen from her scrapbooks that are around the Island today. In the Birth Place of L.M. Montgomery in New London her scrapbooks are on display.

A collection of her work is displayed in a recent published book, “Imagining Anne.”

Her Island scrapbooks from the years 1893 to 1910, provide a revealing look into her world and her inspiration during the period when she created the beloved character of Anne Shirley, while living in Atlantic Canada as a college student, teacher, and writer. In celebration of the hundredth anniversary of the publication of Anne of Green Gables, Montgomery scholar Elizabeth Rollins Epperly has selected and annotated more than one hundred pages of these scrapbooks to produce a beautiful gift book for Montgomery readers, history buffs, and scrapbook enthusiasts.

granny ~00~

Changes to “Anne of Green Gables”

Posted on 2011/03/17 by Guy Posted in Anne of Green Gables .

The words to the opening song are, “Anne of Green Gables never change.” However the festival had announced plans to re-invigorate Canada’s longest running musical last year.

Changes proposed for the Charlottetown Festival production of Anne of Green Gables this season will proceed as planned.

Charlottetown’s The Guardian news reported today that they had also announced that the last of the show’s original creators, Don Harron, would be writing a new scene.

The changes did not include new musical arrangements or new costumes but did include changes in a number of areas relating to the design of the production, its direction and its casting.

The festival executive director David MacKenzie said Wednesday that it is a bold new direction for the festival and the authors and their families after 46 successful years with Anne on our stage.

Changing any icon is a challenge and this process certainly was no different. (some words taken from The Guardian)

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Each year I make my way down to the Confederation Centre and see Anne again. Nothing changes and it is the best musical and the part where Matthew dies brings me to tears each year. I’m looking forward to the opening this year as the years before and I’ll watch for any changes I might notice.

The musical “Anne of Green Gables” plays this year in the Confederation Centre from June 28 to August 31, 2011.

Be sure to get your tickets early, they are selling fast.

~cindy

Need Peace? Go East!

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