Skip to footer

'Anne of Green Gables' comes to the big screen – as a musical

The stage musical version of L.M. Montgomery's novel, which is performed annually at the Charlottetown Festival on Prince Edward Island, will be turned into a film.

'Anne of Green Gables' was originally published by L.M. Montgomery in 1908.
  • By Molly Driscoll Staff Writer

The famous redheaded heroine Anne Shirley is set to hit the big screen.

The stage musical adaptation of L.M. Montgomery’s children’s novel will become a film from Side Road Media and the company Film Farm. “Anne of Green Gables – The Musical” is performed at the Charlottetown Festival on Prince Edward Island, the novel’s setting, every year and has been part of the festival since 1965. 

Actress and writer Kristen Thomson is adapting the show for the screen and Kelley Harron, daughter of one of the show’s original co-writers, Don Harron, is serving as one of the movie’s producers.

“Being Canadian, you kind of forget how Lucy Maud Montgomery made a legacy around the world with this beloved, iconic character,” Harron told the CBC. “So it's super-exciting.”

According to Film Farm, the movie will be shot on Prince Edward Island, and Harron said the production is looking for a Canadian director to take on the film, according to the CBC. 

The show has been performed off-Broadway in New York, has been staged in London, and has toured around the world.

“Anne” was first published in 1908 and was followed by seven sequels. The first book tells the story of the title heroine, an imaginative orphan who comes to live with an elderly brother and sister, Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, by mistake – the two were looking for a boy to help with the farm work.

The most well-known adaptation of Anne’s story is the 1985 TV version which starred actress Megan Follows, who also later played the character in the TV movie  “Anne of Avonlea” and a TV program not based on Montgomery’s novels titled “Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story.” The last big-screen adaptation of the novel was in 1934, when an actress named Dawn O'Day, who later named herself after her role of Anne Shirley, took on the part.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to 'Anne of Green Gables' comes to the big screen – as a musical
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2013/0910/Anne-of-Green-Gables-comes-to-the-big-screen-as-a-musical
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe