Anne of Green Gables seeking Guinness record honours

The Charlottetown Festival is looking into whether Anne of Green Gables is the world's longest-running musical.

The show, entering its 44th year, is already well-established as Canada's longest-running musical, and now Confederation Centre CEO David MacKenzie wants to know if that's a world record.

"I've done a little research and we think that quite possibly it is," MacKenzie told CBC News on Tuesday.

"Once we get the season underway in the next few weeks, we're going to turn our attention a little bit more to working with the Guinness [World Records] folks to find out if that's true. And obviously if it is true, we'll be singing it from the treetops because it'll be wonderful news for Prince Edward Island."

The Guinness World Records book currently does not have an entry for longest-running musical.

The Fantasticks, which ran from May 3, 1960, to Jan. 13, 2002, at the Sullivan Street Playhouse in New York, claims on its website to be the world's longest-running musical. While Anne has run more years, the P.E.I. musical is seasonal and The Fantasticks can easily claim more performances, with 17,162. Anne boasts a little more than 2,600.