StoryBook Theatre’s Anne of Green Gables: The Musical opens Friday, and Calgary audiences have already snapped up almost every seat.
The run is effectively sold out, with only a scattering of single tickets left.
It is one of the company’s strongest sellers of the season, and the excitement around this show speaks to something deeper than nostalgia. It speaks to the power of the heroine, Anne Shirley.
For many people, the iconic character that comes to mind is tied to age or upbringing, and your favourite version of her can reveal your age.
However, for some cast members in this production, their first Anne was something completely different.
Director Jayme Armstrong was struck by the international reach of this character when one of her team members explained that she first met Anne through a foreign‑language dub, never realizing the story was Canadian.
“Her exposure to Anne was through a dubbed version, like somewhere in the Middle East, not knowing that the connection to Canada and never having sort of any point of reference for it, and then falling in love with Anne in her own country as a young girl, and now getting to work on the production in this way,” she said.
That global connection is part of why Armstrong sees Anne as timeless. She also sees her as bold.
“I think Anne was very ahead of her time. And I think that’s why she remains so relevant and so important to us,” she said.
But if you were hoping to see that energy onstage, you might be out of luck.
The show has been sold for weeks, says Armstrong, adding there were only 200 tickets left for the whole run when she started rehearsals.
“That’s just crazy and really speaks to the incredible organization that Storybook Theatre is for Calgary,” said.
Those final single seats remain scattered across the run if you are dedicated enough to find them. If you’d like to source those single tickets, you can head to Storybook Theatre’s website.