Auditions to be held for new Anne, Matthew and Marilla as musical prepares for 53rd season

Auditions will be held for a new Anne, Marilla and Matthew for this summer's 53rd season of Anne of Green Gables the Musical, and incoming director Adam Brazier knows what he's looking for chemistry.

He said when Jessica Gallant decided not to return for a third season as Anne, it gave him the opportunity to audition the three leading roles together.

"As sad as it is to lose Jessica for next season, we are also very excited about the fact we can find this trio as a trio, which is really the way you should shop for it, I believe, is to go out and find these three actors that have the right chemistry together," Brazier told Angela Walker on Mainstreet P.E.I.

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Brazier said it's important for any production, especially one that has been going for 53 years, to recast and re-examine it.

Even though, he said, it can be "heartbreaking."

"A lot of these people are our friends," he said. "And a lot of these people we're having to say, 'Listen, you've had a really good run and we love the work that you've done but it's time to offer this opportunity to somebody else and for us to explore the work a different way.' That's our job. That is the craft of theatre.

"When you do a show for 53 years, if we keep doing the same thing we better re-examine it or we have no right to continue to do it."

Auditions in Toronto

Brazier has held auditions on P.E.I., and will be in Toronto listening to actors sing and rehearse lines from the Charlottetown musical.

When you do a show for 53 years, if we keep doing the same thing we better re-examine it or we have no right to continue to do it. Adam Brazier

But for the three key roles, he's looking for qualities beyond singing and dancing.

In fact, he says, he often looks for things they don't say.

"When you're looking for Anne, you're looking for how do they think more than how do they speak. What's behind the thought, where's the thought coming from and what's driving that imagination," he said.

'Quiet Island quality'

"Matthew and Marilla, it is a quiet Island quality that I really enjoy about them. Their absolute vulnerability in the face of affection, in the face of love and I adore their inability to talk."

Brazier said he hopes to have a new Anne, Marilla and Matthew as well as Miss Stacey in place by March. The part of Gilbert, played last season by P.E.I. native Aaron Hastelow, will be announced in the coming months, said a spokesman for the Confederation Centre of the Arts.

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