When I was in elementary school, I read everything.  ENCYCLOPEDIA BROWN; THE BABY-SITTERS' CLUB; THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE; the FEAR STREET series; THE DRAGONRIDERS OF PERN series; Marguerite Henry's books about horses; Brian Jacques' REDWALL series;  if it was in my town's public library, I read it. I've always been a fast reader and wasn't allowed to watch much T.V., so I plowed my way through authors and genres, inevitably gravitating towards the thickest books I could find.

There are a lot of books I vaguely remember reading, and there are a lot of books I remember really loving.  But I read so much in those five years that there aren't that many books I remember with a great deal of clarity.  I remember how old I was when I read a given book and how I felt about it, but it's hard for me to remember details of the book itself.

There's one exception: ANNE OF GREEN GABLES.

I don't remember how I started reading that series.  I may have just picked up the first book because it was thick, written at the turn of the 20th century (a time period I loved, thanks to the AMERICAN GIRL books), and about a girl not much older than me. It's possible an adult had recommended it based on my enjoyment of LITTLE WOMEN.  For whatever reason, once I started reading, I couldn't stop until I had read all eight books in the series...which I re-read so many times their bindings broke.  I watched the 1985 miniseries obsessively, sometimes while reading along in the novels so I would know every single difference between the made for TV adaptation and the source material. My two Anne dolls - a small Madame Alexander doll and a larger plushie - were prized possessions.  For a while, I took the larger plush doll on all extended car trips, and when I fell hard in my grandparents' driveway that winter, I immediately checked to make sure Anne was okay. And every summer, I begged my parents to take us to Prince Edward Island so I could see the real Green Gables in person.



My obsession couldn't have come at a better time.  In the early to mid '90s, a TV series called THE ROAD TO AVONLEA aired on the Disney Channel as AVONLEA.  Directed by Kevin Sullivan, who had also directed my beloved ANNE OF GREEN GABLES miniseries, AVONLEA was based on THE STORY GIRL and THE GOLDEN ROAD, stories by ANNE OF GREEN GABLES author L.M. Montgomery about a spirited group of children in the town of Avonlea after Anne had grown up and moved away.  My siblings and I watched the show religiously.  I often insisted that my two sisters and brother play AVONLEA with me, where each of us pretended to be a character and we'd act out original storylines.  As the oldest and an aspiring author, I naturally got to be Sara Stanley, the Story Girl herself - just as I got to be Anne when we played ANNE OF GREEN GABLES.

Anne deeply affected me, although we were nothing alike on the surface.  Anne Shirley was a skinny redheaded orphan whose wild imagination,  incessant talking, and refusal to back down from anything - including authority figures - regularly landed her in trouble.  I was a short, shy, chubby girl with three siblings who stayed inside during recess to read so often my teachers eventually started forcing me out. I admired her stubborness and her bravery, and how she accepted the consequences when those qualities made a fool out of her or got her in trouble with her adopted parents, elderly siblings Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert. I strongly identified with her rich imagination and love of books.  But I think more than anything else, L.M. Montgomery had written a girl so vibrant, so real, that I wanted to be her best friend.  In fact, Anne's entire world had such depth that it was easy to imagine yourself living there: running along the ocean by the White Sands Hotel, traveling to Charlottetown on a big shopping trip, convincing the eccentric recluse in the run-down mansion that you're kindred spirits.



So much about Anne - and her story - is inherently theatrical, so I was thrilled to realize there's a musical stage version of ANNE OF GREEN GABLES.  Anne is one of the most fascinating characters from my childhood, somehow managing to be practical despite insisting that people call her "Cordelia" (Anne being "such an unromantic name"), and always believing in the goodness of the human spirit despite the hardship and neglect she endured the first 12 years of her life. Being able to see Anne live and onstage, expressing herself through song, is a gift my 9 year old self would have killed for.



To license ANNE OF GREEN GABLES, visit its MTI show page. Discuss ANNE OF GREEN GABLES on its MTI ShowSpace page.