The 'Charlottetown Festival' is a seasonal
Canadian musical theatre festival which runs from late May to mid-October every year since
1965.
Named after its host city,
Charlottetown,
Prince Edward Island, since its inception the festival has showcased Canada's most popular and longest-running musical, ''
Anne of Green Gables - The Musical'', as well as having sought out and commissioned over 66 new Canadian musicals, including the 2005 and 2006 productions of
Canada Rocks, the Festival's most popular long-running production after ''Anne''.
Hosted in the
Confederation Centre of the Arts, every year the Charlottetown Festival features some of Canada's finest performers, designers, playwrights, composers, and directors in a professional showcase of musical theatre and comedy.
Past Artistic Directors of the Festival include
Mavor Moore,
Alan Lund, and
Walter Learning. Learning ignited a storm of controversy across the country in
1987 when he presented the
Alan Bleasdale musical ''Are You Lonesome Tonight?'' a tough look at the life of
Elvis Presley. Objections to the rough language and adult subject matter were even brought up in the
provincial legislature. However, the musical was a major critical success for the Charlottetown Festival and became the only Festival production to equal ''Anne of Green Gables'' in ticket sales during its first season.
External links
★
The Charlottetown Festival home page