The Goodspeed premieres a modern ‘Anne of Green Gables’ musical

Goodspeed Musicals is bringing the beloved 1908 novel “Anne of Green Gables” gently into the 21st century with a new musical version of the much-adapted story of an orphan girl who is brought to work on a Canadian farm under the mistaken impression that she is a boy. The coming-of-age tale of a young woman learning to assert herself and find companionship in a strange and often unwelcoming new environment has fueled numerous movies, TV series and even several other musicals.

How is this one different? According to its director Jenn Thompson, it has a poppy modern score, with music by Matt Vinson and book and lyrics by Matte O’Brien. It isn’t dominated by children, using adult performers for a more flashback-oriented “memory play” approach. The show is staged in modern dress with a contemporary feel.

“Matte and Matt are steeped in classic music theater,” Thompson says, “but there’s definitely a pop/rock flavor. This is a really modern version.”

Thompson is the one who first alerted the Goodspeed to this new “Anne of Green Gables” when she helmed a developmental production of the musical in Ithaca, New York, in 2018.

“I invited [Goodspeed artistic director] Donna Lynn Hilton to see it, Thompson says. “She flew right out.” Thompson says she expected the show might get done at the Goodspeed’s smaller Norma Terris Theater in Chester, but Hilton was so enthusiastic she wanted it for the main Goodspeed Opera House season.

“Anne of Green Gables” was originally announced for the Goodspeed’s 2020 season, but most of that season was incapacitated by the COVID shutdown. The 2021 season, when the Goodspeed ended up producing most of its shows in an outdoor tent, didn’t work out for “Anne” either. Finally, the musical — which Thompson says “was all cast and ready to go” in 2020 — will be on the Opera House stage July 15 through Sept. 4. Thompson says the current cast is a mix of those who would have done it two years ago and some new faces. The show stars Juliette Redden as Anne.

Thompson’s previous Goodspeed shows include “The Music Man,” “Oklahoma!” and “Bye Bye Birdie.” She has also been involved with TheaterWorks Hartford, where she directed “The Call,” “A Doll’s House Part 2″ and the virtual production “Moonlighters” and is scheduled to premiere the new musical “Monstersongs” next year.

Before she was a nationally known director, Thompson was a New York actress known in Connecticut for running the River Rep summer stock seasons at the Ivoryton Playhouse from 1987 to 2008 with her parents and brother. The various phases of Thompson’s theater have aligned recently: She is living again in Ivoryton and is directing a new national tour of “Annie,” a show she performed in on Broadway as a child. “It’s a total rewind for me,” Thompson says.

Does she see any similarities between “Annie” and “Anne of Green Gables”? “Well, it’s a red-headed orphan, so there’s that,” Thompson deadpans. “They share the ‘scrappy survivor’ narrative, but this is a completely different story. If Little Orphan Annie is the optimist, Anne is the survivor, overcoming a traumatic past. She sees the beauty in things, but they were borne out of darkness. Anne’s secret weapon is imagination. It’s a great jumping off point.”

“Whenever I direct a show,” Thompson says, “I ask myself, ‘Why am I doing this now?’” That becomes an even more interesting question when a show is delayed two years by a global pandemic. “The world has changed significantly since 2018, but some things in this show are even more resonant.”

On the first day of “Anne of Green Gables” rehearsals, one of the show’s cast members, Sharon Catherine Brown, recognized Thompson from one of the movies the director made as a child.

“When I auditioned, I saw her and I immediately knew she was Penelope from ‘Little Darlings’” — the 1980 summer camp coming-of-age movie starring Kristy McNichol and Tatum O’Neal, made when Thompson was 12 years old.

Brown’s Broadway credits display an extraordinary range: She starred in the recent revival of “Caroline, or Change,” appeared in the esoteric Go-Gos musical “Head Over Heels” and sang the role of the narrator in “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.” In Connecticut, she was the first Black actor to play Lucy in the musical “Jekyll & Hyde,” which launched its first national tour at the Oakdale in Wallingford.

Brown says the “Anne of Green Gables” cast has bonded like family, a beautiful fit for a show she says is about “family, trust and community.

“What I like most about this ‘Anne of Green Gables,’” Brown says, “is that in other versions, the generational thing is usually so segregated, with the old people and the young people. In this one, you don’t feel that separation. Every character has a full life. Some just happen to have lived longer.”

It’s also a diverse onstage community. Brown appreciates that, “as a woman of color, they saw me in this role, which not everyone would consider. Two of the female leads are people of color and it’s appropriate for the characters, even though they’ve been played by white actors before. At the first rehearsal, the creators said ‘Everyone in this room is our first choice.’”

Brown plays Marilla, one half of the brother/sister farming team that takes Anne on as a worker.

“Marilla is a co-owner of Green Gables. She lives with her brother Matthew. It’s her idea to get a boy to help with the farm. Instead, Anne shows up. It’s all about how Anne works her way into everybody’s hearts and minds. Marilla is not the villain, but she’s definitely an obstacle. She’s the closed gate and Anne is saying, ‘How do I get past this?’”

Thompson said that when interpreting “Anne of Green Gables” for present-day audiences, “I really stayed away from other versions, including the TV ones. I had read the book of course, but I hadn’t grown up with the book. It was helpful that I didn’t have these previous attachments to it.” She says Vinson and O’Brien drew most of the musical’s plot from the first book in L.M. Montgomery’s series of six main books about Anne, but “also pulled from the second one.”

“These are powerful books,” Thompson concludes. “People have Anne of Green Gables-themed weddings.”

Now the Goodspeed is bringing that spirit of love, community and commitment to the stage.

“Anne of Green Gables: A New Musical” by Matte O’Brien and Matt Vinson runs July 15 through Sept. 4 at the Goodspeed Opera House, 6 Main Street, East Haddam. Performances are Wednesday and Thursday at both 2:30 and 7:30 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 3 and 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 and 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $30-$80. goodspeed.org.

Christopher Arnott can be reached at carnott@courant.com.