Playing lead role 'monumental' for new Anne of Green Gables actor

After a two-year break due to COVID-19, Anne of Green Gables The Musical is scheduled to return to the Confederation Centre this summer with a new actor in the title role.

Kelsey Verzotti, who was born in Calgary and is based out of Toronto, has been chosen to play the role of Anne Shirley.

She said she become emotional when her agent told her she landed the part.

"It's a part that I was once told in school that I would never play because I'm Asian," she said in an interview with Mainstreet P.E.I. host Angela Walker.

"And so to get the part just feels really, really special. I just can't really put it into words. It just feels monumental for me personally."

Played Diana Barry

Verzotti previously played Anne's best friend and kindred spirit Diana Barry in a 2019 production at Thousand Islands Playhouse in Ontario.

Emma Rudy, who played Anne when the musical was last staged at the Charlottetown Festival in 2019, will return to play Diana. Verzotti and Rudy went to theatre school together.

"I already have that kindred spirit," she said.

Before the pandemic closed it down, the production had run annually since the festival's launch in 1965 and is recognized in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's longest-running annual musical.

'So many people can relate'

Verzotti said part of Anne's appeal is that the story is universal, and it doesn't matter who plays the role. She noted that Anne of Green Gables is very popular in Japan, for example.

"So many people can relate to feeling different or that they don't fit in," she said.

"It would be great for children to see, maybe children who are Asianas well, to see an Asian performer playing this part. It'll just sort of open up all of these doors to them because I know when I was growing up, I didn't always see Asian leads in musicals when I went to see shows with my parents."

Anne of Green Gables The Musicalstarts previews June 18, with opening night slated for June 25. The production will run until Sept. 3.