The Midnight Train Crossing

My cousin saw the dress rehearsal of this show, and she enjoyed it a lot. She saw the "Green" cast. We saw the "Gable" cast.

Anne of Green Gables takes place in Canada around the early 1900s. Two siblings, Matthew (Michael Duncan) and Marilla (Linda Stephens) realize that they are getting old and the farm, Green Gables, is too much work for Matthew alone.
So they send a friend off to bring a boy back from an orphanage to help on the farm.
What they get is green-eyed, red-haired, out-spoken, over-dramatic Anne-spelled-with-an-E Shirley. Anne and Matthew get along instantly, but Marilla and Anne butt heads fairly often.

The set was great. As soon as we walked in I said to my mom that it looked just like a dollhouse. There was a kitchen and a "Second story" which had Anne's room. The "house" was slightly raised up off the stage and plants were placed around the edges to show the "outside"

The stage was slightly open to the audience so that the actors could come and go via the aisles of the theatre, which meant they had people guarding the stage so no one accidentally wandered onto the stage. One bored looking girl, and another one entertaining herself by doing a little dance. Usually they have ushers guarding the stage, but not this time, so I was a bit unsure why those two girls were standing there.

Highlights among the cast were Matthew (Michael Duncan) who had a good singing voice, but over all just had this loveable quality about him. It was pretty clear why he and Anne got along so well. And he got lots of the pretty songs.

Anne's best friend, Diana, played by Kendall Yorkey also had a beautiful voice in the song that she sings with Anne where they vow to be bosom friends. It would have been nice to hear her sing a bit more.

Their neighbor and friend Rachel Lynde was played by Rhonda Rae Busch, and I think she was the funniest character in the play. She insulted Anne to her face and then was upset when Anne got angry at her. At the start of the play she told Marilla that she didn't think that adopting an orphan was a good idea, and at the end of the play she said "See, I told you that adopting an orphan would be a good idea"
She also proceeds to gossip to Marilla about things, telling her that some people just can't stop talking about other people.
She just had a very good comedic air about her, and I liked watching the scenes that she was in.

Anne Shirley was played by Jenna Wolfsohn, a seventh grader (that puts her at about twelve or thirteen for my international readers) and she was amazing.
Of course, to get the lead she had to be pretty good – and usually at First Stage, the leads are, but she was amazing.
She had a great voice for all of her songs, but she delivered her speaking lines perfectly, and she did a good job of portraying the overly dramatic Anne.
She just had the right sort of presence about her.

The story starts with Matthew going off to meet the "boy" at the station on one side of the stage and Anne coming in on the train on the other side.
Matthew is quiet and Anne chatters non stop. He's instantly taken with her and, in a song sung counter-point with Anne going on and on about how excited she is to go to her new home, he quietly says that he likes her.

A lot of the songs have many parts to them, all sung at once. I like songs like that, but at times it was hard to understand them. I think that the people who have the important bits should have been miked a little louder or something.
For example, there is a song called Positively Providential where Marilla, Mrs Spencer (Who brought Anne) and Mrs Blewett (who is looking for a servant girl). They each have a verse which they repeat over and over again in counter-point to whoever is singing, but at Marilla's verse (The third verse) it was hard to hear her over the other two.
That said, at the conclusion of the song, Marilla decides that Anne should stay with them, and she very amusingly kicks the other two out of her house.

Anne's apology song to Mrs Lynde was very funny as well. Basically Mrs Lynde says that Anne is too thin and has freckles and red hair and she's never seen a more homely girl. Anne responds that Mrs Lynde is rude and mean-spirited and hateful.
In her apology song (sung on her knees of course) she says that she shouldn't be angry at Mrs Lynde, all of the things that she said was true – and, Anne adds softly, the things that she said about Mrs. Lynde were true too. Nicely done Anne.

On her way to school, Anne meets Diana and the two are instant friends forever and ever (in another song I like) and then they go into class, which was one of the more amusing scenes in the play. The teacher, Mr. Phillips (Adam Estes) did a great job playing a strict but rather frazzled teacher.
School is also where Anne meets Jane (Katie Bentley) who is nice and Josie Pye (Margaux Kenwood) who is not. (Unless that was the other way around)
She also meets Gilbert (Alex Miller) who thinks that she's fascinating and even beautiful. Unfortunately the only way he can think of to get her attention is by pulling on her hair and making fun of how bright red it is. He did a pretty good job as well, he was quite adorkable
So now Anne vows to hate him forever and never be friends with him – which makes him sad.

My favorite scene in the whole show was the song A Dress With Puffy Sleeves. Anne is graduating High School (several years down the line) and will be going off to college soon and Matthew wants to get her something nice. The current style are dresses with lots of lace, and puffy sleeves, but practical-minded Marilla says that Anne has plenty of dresses.
Matthew quietly goes down to an everything-store and asks the clerk for assistance. He'd like a new hoe, some work gloves, a girl's party dress, some seed and some feed for his horse.
She asks him again, just to make sure, "A girl's party dress?"
He says that it's for Anne – not him. He knows that the current style is for dresses with puffy sleeves.
The whole store gets in on the song, which is quite bouncy and lots of fun.

Sadly, shortly after Anne graduates, Matthew has a heart attack and dies.
His actual death is off-stage and we just see the reactions, and then Anne singing softly to a grave stone.
It made me cry.

Anne decides that she's held her grudge against Gilbert long enough, so they make up.
Matthew's death brings Anne and Marilla close together, and in another tear jerking scene Marilla says that she's not good at showing it, but she has always loved Anne just as much as Matthew did.

The play ends with a song of new hope for Anne and Marilla's future together on Green Gables