No Anne of Green Gables at the Charlottetown Festival in 2023

Anne of Green Gables — The Musicalthe centerpiece of the Charlottetown Festival for more than 50 years, will now only be produced every other year, with no production next year.

The Confederation Center of the Arts made the announcement in a press release Thursday morning.

The production base on the young heroine of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s beloved novels is the world record holder for longest running seasonally aired musical.

It was staged every summer at the festival from 1965 to 2019, but the string was severed by the COVID-19 pandemic. After a two-year hiatus, it returned to the Confederation Center in 2022.

When there is no production of Anne at the Charlottetown Arts Center every other year, the rights will be available for other productions under a renegotiated rights agreement.

The staging of the musical at the Charlottetown Festival « will be made available to schools and non-professional community groups for the first time in the Maritimes, through Concord Theatricals, » the press release said.

“This new deal will also bring the musical to other markets when not showing at the festival, with beautifully imagined tour sets developed under [Charlottetown Festival artistic director] Advice from Adam Brazier. »

Kelly Harron, the daughter of the musical’s co-creator, Don Harron, is excited to open up opportunities for new companies to pitch the show.

« The pandemic has given us the chance to imagine how we can share the magic of Anne and Avonlea, » Harron said.

“Making musical comedy more accessible will help inspire a new generation of theater artists and patrons,”

The show will then take to the main stage in Charlottetown in 2024, coinciding with Montgomery’s birth 150 years earlier, in 1874.