Stratford, Prince Edward Island
Forgive me for not journaling sooner, but frankly, I needed to decompress! What a day Friday was! And I mean that in a very good way - I think it's safe to define the 9LoLMM workshop as a success!

The day started off with the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, for those who don't know) coming out to interview us for their evening newscast! Was I nervous? Sure - but how many times do you get to be on TV? As for the workshop itself, with so many details, there was a lot of places where things could have gone wrong. But very few did, and it looked and sounded great! The cast did a great job considering how little time they had to pull things together, and considering the many changes that took place as the rehearsals continued on. Let me just publicly thank The Confederation Centre of the Arts and everyone in our cast and everyone on the technical side of it for making all this happen!

I would have to say it was a full house. Only as the workshop started did it occur to me - sure, we find things funny or sad or whatever, but would the audience feel the same way? Especially with the dialogue? But it didn't really feel like anything fell flat - people laughed at things that were intended to be funny and seemed to get a lot of the Maud in-references. As for me, hearing words that I wrote up there, hearing an audience react to it...well, during An Epoch In My Life when Maud and Anne talk about "the realization of dreams pursued" and how "the power of imagination has changed our lives"...well, it felt like they were talking about me. It was quite the emotional moment!

We had a Q&A afterwards...that could easily have been the hardest part. There was no guarantee people were going to like it, understand it, approve of it - and here we had to go up on stage ourselves and field questions and comments in front of a room full of people. But the reaction was really very good. People really seemed to like it, and praised us for how accurate it is, and told us how important a piece it is and how much value it has. And of course, they loved Leo's music! So that was really a high as well. It was pretty surreal - made even more so by the fact that we hadn't gotten much of a chance to eat the whole day!

Then, thanks to our neighbours here in Stratford, we were able to see the CBC interview, which you will find below. Now, you may ask - what's next for 9LoLMM? Well, it's all going to come down to financing. I think we have a really good shot toward getting this on stage in time for the 100th anniversary of Anne of Green Gables next summer. So, if you saw the workshop - or didn't but still believe in what we're trying to do - contact The Confederation Centre of the Arts and tell them you want to see The Nine Lives of Lucy Maud Montgomery playing there in 2008! After all, money might talk, but an audience shouts! And that makes you guys the most important part of the equation. Believe it!

We also were featured in Prince Edward Island's leading newspapers - The Guardian and The Journal-Pioneer - check out the new Press section for scans! 9LoLMM is on its way!

Oh - did I mention we were on TV? ;)