Other: "For Mathew"

As Victor Hugo once said, "Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent." It has an incredible ability to express, share, and even influence emotions that otherwise would go ignored or misunderstood.
It's with this thought in mind that I created the playlist "For Mathew" as a way of getting into character for Millbrook's fall play, Anne of Green Gables. I was cast as Mathew Cuthbert, the loving father figure to Anne Shirley, a very significant and challenging role. I had auditioned with hopes of being cast as Mathew but knew that it would be a daily struggle in rehearsal to discover, remember, and convey who exactly this old, quiet man that was basically a total opposite of me really was to the audience. He only has so many lines on which an actor can base his understanding of the character, so a huge brunt of the work was on me to bring the character to life! Mr. Kotzian, the theatre teacher, had mentioned making a "character playlist" before, and without even realizing it I began to create my own a few weeks before the show.
Though musically dissimilar, each song has some significant piece that reminds me of who my Mathew Cuthbert was. Many of them have lyrics that remind me of Mathew's actual personality or role in the show, like "Suddenly" from the Les Miserables film or Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's "Our House." Other songs spurred me on to develop a totally unique Mathew Cuthbert; for example, I imagined Mathew as a talented choral singer who had been forced to give up his musical dreams in order to take care of his sister and the family farm. It's for this reason that I included "The Pasture" by Z. Randall Stroope. One of my favorite songs from "For Mathew" is "The Water is Wide," which is  traditional Scottish song that Mathew could very realistically have known and loved in 1910 Canada.
The one song that will always remind me of Mathew Cuthbert, though, is probably the biggest outlier on the entire playlist. After a long day of rehearsal, I remember sitting in my car and hearing "Can't You See" by the Marshall Tucker Band and thinking, "This is Mathew." In my mind, the soft-spoken and loving Mathew Cuthbert was not always a shy old grandfather-type. He had once been an exciting young man with hopes and dreams that reached far beyond his home of Prince Edward Island, with a future and a lover and a story of loss.
Hearing that song that day is a moment I will never forget and one that will always remind me of both the beauty of theatre and the power of music.