Stratford, Prince Edward Island
Just a little sense of déjà vu tonight. Tomorrow is our first day of auditions, and I'm spending the evening printing out "sides" - pages of dialogue for the actors to read. A little over 7 months ago, I was doing the same thing in preparation to audition the company of the Confederation Centre - you may recall their cast stepped in for the workshop. How much the same printing these sides up is, and how different!

Obviously, the main difference is that back then it was for the workshop and now it's for our own production. But the thing that strikes me the most is the libretto! I had to reference some of the older drafts over the weekend while I did a little cleaning up on the current version (I'd love to say "final version", but we still have to get a pesky 6 minutes out of this thing) and I about cringed! It's not that it didn't have its merits, but I've learned an awful lot about this the last several months and...well, it's not so much that it's painful looking over the old versions, but more awe-inspiring that there have been so many changes. And yet, it's essentially the same story, just reinvented.

There's a line in An Epoch In My Life, the duet where Maud and Anne marvel at the publication of Anne of Green Gables, where Anne says "To-day I go out and meet the world!" - and that's kind of how it feels. It's not just Leo and I discussing the script anymore. It's not even putting it in front of dramaturgs. Now we're really bringing other people into it. I'm not nervous, actually...it's just an interesting experience.

Well, back to work...and I don't dare count the number of days just now!