Marilla of Green Gables: Becoming a Family (2024)

Marilla of Green Gables: Becoming a Family (2024) is a play by Chris Henry that adapts L.M. Montgomery's novel Anne of Green Gables for the stage. The play presents Marilla Cuthbert's perspective and is the second part of a two-part adaptation of the story. The first part is titled Anne of Green Gables: Finding Home. The two productions can be watched independently as stand-alone plays or viewed together as a whole.

The plays premiered on October 17, 2024 and will run through November 4, 2024 at the Royal Family Performing Arts Space in Times Square located on 145 West 46th Street, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10036. Both plays were produced by Royal Family Productions, where Chris Henry serves as the artistic director, and they were adapted and co-directed by Henry, with choreography and co-direction by Lorna Ventura. The cast of Marilla of Green Gables includes Ephraim Birney, Francesca Fernandez, Desi Waters, Emily Anne Davis, and Madison McLean.

Chris Henry discussed her inspiration to bring the plays to the stage because of her personal connection to the story with BroadwayWorld saying, "As someone who was adopted, the story of a fiery, strong, imaginative orphan girl really resonated with me throughout my childhood and throughout my life. I was inspired to take this material and adapt Ms. Montgomery's text for the Royal Family stage with my collaborator, Lorna Ventura. We have stripped down the book to its essence and have broken it up into two parts. We hope that anyone who has ever tried to find their place in the world will find joy, inspiration, and home in the story of Anne of Green Gables."

The play is described as follows:

"Marilla of Green Gables: Becoming a Family shifts over to Marilla’s point of view as we see her navigate what becoming a mother really means as she continues to deal with Anne’s adventures growing up. Royal Family Productions presents this world premiere in repertory with Anne of Green Gables: Finding Home. These pieces are each stand-alone plays, but together they tell the story of three unlikely people meeting and eventually becoming a family."

Tickets are $35 for general admission, $100/$65 for tax-deductible reserved seats, and $250/$215 for tax-deductible VIP tickets. The show is 1 hour and 25 minutes long, with no intermission.


Official Website:
Royal Family Productions

Image Credit:
Poster for Marilla of Green Gables: Becoming a Family (2024) from Royal Family Productions.

References:
Rabinowitz, Chloe. (2024, October 3). Anne of Green Gables: Finding Home & Marilla of Green Gables: Becoming a Family to Run Off-Broadway. BroadwayWorld.com. Retrieved from: https://www.broadwayworld.com/off-broadway/article/ANNE-OF-GREEN-GABLES-FINDING-HOME-MARILLA-OF-GREEN-GABLES-BECOMING-A-FAMILY-to-Run-Off-Broadway-20241003.

Created October 30, 2024.
© worldofanneshirley.com

Marilla Cuthbert and Darth Vader

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away....

Marilla Cuthbert and Darth Vader fell in love. They adopted a young orphan named Anne Shirley, and even though she was not a boy, they decided to keep her. Anne grew up to be the most powerful Jedi of all, entirely because she was a girl.

Well, not really, but that's what I imagined earlier today when I saw a photograph of Colleen Dewhurst, who played Marilla Cuthbert in Anne of Green Gables, and James Earl Jones, who gave voice to Darth Vader in Star Wars. This photograph was taken when these two talented actors starred in a production of Hamlet in 1972 in New York City's Central Park. Colleen Dewhurst played Gertrude and James Earl Jones played Claudius.


Image credit:
Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library. (1972). Colleen Dewhurst and James Earl Jones in publicity for the stage production Hamlet. Retrieved from https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/c91c5430-1183-0130-f059-58d385a7b928.

Created September 10, 2024.
© worldofanneshirley.com

L.M. Montgomery and the Magic of Spring

As winter gives way to spring, there is freshness in the air. Sprouts emerge from the cold soil, leaves take form on bare tree limbs, and animals return to activity.

L.M. Montgomery captured this sensation as she wrote in her journal on May 1, 1899 in Cavendish, Prince Edward Island:

"There is a magic about the spring—some power that revives half-dead hopes and faiths and thrills numbed souls with the elixir of new life. There is no age in spring—everybody seems young and joyful. Care is in abeyance for a little while and hearts throb with the instinct for immortality."

In spring, Montgomery feels that everyone is ageless. The return of warmth brings cheer; the sense of revival in nature brings hope.

When Montgomery wrote Anne of Green Gables, she again reflected on the magic of spring, writing:

"Marilla, walking home one late April evening from an Aid meeting, realized that the winter was over and gone with the thrill of delight that spring never fails to bring to the oldest and saddest as well as to the youngest and merriest."

Today, like L.M. Montgomery, I’m glad it’s spring—a season that warms spirits, revives half-dead hopes, and allows us to feel youthful and joyful.


Image credit:
Photograph by World of Anne Shirley.

Reference:
Montgomery, L.M. The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery: The PEI Years, 1889-1900. ed. Mary Henley Rubio and Elizabeth Hillman Waterston. Oxford University Press. 2017.

Created May 2, 2024. Last updated August 21, 2024.
© worldofanneshirley.com

Marilla Before Anne

Marilla Before Anne by Louise Michalos was published in May 2021 by Nimbus Publishing and Vagrant Press. This work of historical fiction extends the world of Anne of Green Gables to tell the story of Marilla Cuthbert's early life. What was Marilla like before Anne Shirley entered the picture?

Louise Michalos set out to answer this question in her own way. Michalos was born in Musquodoboit Harbour, Nova Scotia and raised in Halifax. Her mother was raised in a lighthouse, and her father, like L.M. Montgomery, was raised in a house that served as the local post office. She has knowledge and awareness of the community ties in the Maritimes, and wanted to explore Marilla's backstory with an authentic voice.

Here is the description of the book from Nimbus Publishing and Vagrant Press:

A heart-rending work of historical fiction telling the story of Marilla Cuthbert, long before Anne came to Green Gables farm.

Marilla Cuthbert was fifty-two years old when the plucky red-headed Anne Shirley came to live with her and her brother, Matthew, at Green Gables farm on Prince Edward Island. A seemingly cold and dour spinster, her heart eventually softens to the loveable orphan girl. But for over a century readers have wondered, who was Marilla before Anne?

In Louise Michalos’s remarkable debut novel, readers are introduced to a spirited eighteen-year-old Marilla Cuthbert—a girl not unlike Anne herself—who is desperately in love, and whose whole life is spread before her. But when a moment of defiance brings life-changing consequences, a new Marilla begins to take shape, one who would learn to bear tragedy like a birthright, and loss as an inevitability, and who would hold steadfast to the secrets that could shatter the lives of everyone around her.

Weaving its way from Marilla’s early life in Avonlea to her coming-of-age in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and back, Marilla Before Anne is the story readers of Anne of Green Gables have longed for. Told with a refreshingly original East Coast voice, this exquisite, heartbreaking work of historical fiction takes readers on a journey back in time, to the Green Gables where Marilla Cuthbert lived, loved, and learned, long before Anne.

Reviews

"Beloved characters live in our minds. For those who think they know Marilla Cuthbert, Louise Michalos creates a heart-rending and imaginative fantasy of who our Marilla might have been."
—Lesley Crewe, author of The Spoon Stealer

"Taking us back to Marilla's passionate youth, this book is part old-style romance, part history, with complicated heroes, heroines, and villains. It plays fast and loose with the Marilla and Matthew who may already live inside readers' heads―those willing to take that leap are in for a galloping ride."
—Liz Rosenberg, author of House of Dreams: A Biography of L. M. Montgomery

Image credit:
Book cover of Marilla Before Anne.

Reference:
Author spotlight: Louise Michalos. Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia. Retrieved from: https://writers.ns.ca/author-spotlights/author-spotlight-louise-michalos/.

Purchase and read Marilla Before Anne:


Created June 10, 2021. Last updated October 23, 2024.
© worldofanneshirley.com

Marilla of Green Gables

Marilla of Green Gables: A Novel by Sarah McCoy was published in October 2018 by William Morrow Paperbacks, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. This work of historical fiction expands the world of Anne of Green Gables to tell the backstory of Marilla Cuthbert. Did you ever wonder about her early life and romance with John Blythe? Anne Shirley was curious, and I'm sure many readers of Anne of Green Gables were too.

Here is the description of the book from HarperCollins Publishers:

A bold, heartfelt tale of life at Green Gables . . . before Anne: A marvelously entertaining and moving historical novel, set in rural Prince Edward Island in the nineteenth century, that imagines the young life of spinster Marilla Cuthbert, and the choices that will open her life to the possibility of heartbreak—and unimaginable greatness.

Plucky and ambitious, Marilla Cuthbert is thirteen years old when her world is turned upside down. Her beloved mother dies in childbirth, and Marilla suddenly must bear the responsibilities of a farm wife: cooking, sewing, keeping house, and overseeing the day-to-day life of Green Gables with her brother, Matthew and father, Hugh.

In Avonlea—a small, tight-knit farming town on a remote island—life holds few options for farm girls. Her one connection to the wider world is Aunt Elizabeth "Izzy" Johnson, her mother’s sister, who managed to escape from Avonlea to the bustling city of St. Catharines. An opinionated spinster, Aunt Izzy’s talent as a seamstress has allowed her to build a thriving business and make her own way in the world.

Emboldened by her aunt, Marilla dares to venture beyond the safety of Green Gables and discovers new friends and new opportunities. Joining the Ladies Aid Society, she raises funds for an orphanage run by the Sisters of Charity in nearby Nova Scotia that secretly serves as a way station for runaway slaves from America. Her budding romance with John Blythe, the charming son of a neighbor, offers her a possibility of future happiness—Marilla is in no rush to trade one farm life for another. She soon finds herself caught up in the dangerous work of politics, and abolition—jeopardizing all she cherishes, including her bond with her dearest John Blythe. Now Marilla must face a reckoning between her dreams of making a difference in the wider world and the small-town reality of life at Green Gables.

Reviews

"Great for lovers of Anne who need more Avonlea in their lives. This book was very well done in the style of L.M. Montgomery that I had to remind myself that it wasn't actually written by her..."
― Alison Frenzel, Fabled Bookshop and Cafe, TX

"Fans of the Anne of Green Gables series will rejoice at this warm and heartfelt addition to their world. McCoy’s love for the characters is palpable, and with an insightful eye she illuminates the original Avonlea, while also offering glimpses into the turbulent history of the time."
— Madeline Miller, Author of Circe

Image credit:
Book cover of Marilla of Green Gables.

Purchase and read Marilla of Green Gables:


Created November 6, 2018. Last updated October 5, 2024.
© worldofanneshirley.com