Around Town: Just fiddling around at Anne & Gilbert opening night

Consider yourself warned: If you attend the National Arts Centre’s new musical, Anne & Gilbert, you may develop a uncontrollable case of toe-tapping, brought on by the catchy and charming songs.

There’s not much that audience members could do about it Friday, except head to the NAC Salon for the opening night reception.

There, they could tap, tap, tap away until their hearts were content as the play’s cast and crew, along with their friends and family members, eventually turned the party into a lively East Coast-style jam session.

Jillian Keiley, artistic director of the National Arts Centre’s English Theatre, played accordion at the opening night party for the NAC’s new musical, Anne & Gilbert, alongside her husband and sound designer, Don Ellis.

NAC artistic director Jillian Keiley was there squeezing the accordion next to her guitar-playing husband, sound designer Don Ellis. Cast member Dave Whiteley played the fiddle and the saw (not at the same time) while young girls step-danced up a storm.

From left, Kate Macdonald Butler, granddaughter of Lucy Maud Montgomery, with her sister-in-law Vivian Macdonald and Montgomery’s great-granddaughter, Allison Hodge, from Ottawa.

In the audience that night were relatives of Lucy Maud Montgomery, who so famously penned Anne of Green Gables. “I think it’s fantastic,” granddaughter Kate Macdonald Butler of Toronto said of the production. “I think it’s a really fun show.”

Butler has previously seen the play in Prince Edward Island and the Thousands Islands Playhouse in Gananoque, but there’s something “pretty special”, she said, about seeing it on the national stage. “I wouldn’t miss it.”

The cast includes 12 local young children with a passion for theatre, song and dance. Among the bright young stars is Clara Silcoff, 11. You may recall her from her stellar performance as Gretl in the NAC’s The Sound of Music a couple of years back.

“Tonight is such a special night,” Silcoff, a student of Chelsea Elementary School, told Around Town at the reception. “Just being on that stage in front of the opening night audience is exhilarating. It’s a thrill to have that energy from the crowd.”

The music was written by Nancy White, Bob Johnston and Jeff Hochhauser, all of whom attended, as did the director, Martha Irving, and the play’s producer, Campbell Webster.

There were some really nice holiday touches worth mentioning, from seven-year-old Naomi LeBlanc dressed as Anne Shirley and passing out red-and green-wrapped chocolates in the lobby, to the tiny gifts hidden under select seats in the NAC Theatre to the late-night live music in the Salon, where the artists performed arguably the greatest Christmas song of all time, Fairytale of New York, by the Pogues.

Related

• Theatre review: Anne and Gilbert are alive and well and full of fun
• Wondering what to do in town? We have ideas.

carolyn001@sympatico.ca