Childhood icons abound, but there's something particularly magical about the image of a little girl with thick red braids and a straw hat, clutching her carpet bag and standing alone at the train station.

The solitary figure of Anne Shirley - also known as "Anne of Green Gables" - is instantly recognizable to anyone who has traveled in spirit to Prince Edward Island.

Through the novels of L.M. Montgomery, the famed Canadian writer, millions of children and adults across the world have come to know and love the feisty, short-tempered but good-natured Anne, who finds the world an endless source of inspiration, providing much "scope for the imagination."

Anne will be gracing the Majestic Theater stage with Corvallis Community Theater in late December, and this week, dozens of would-be-Annes, and not a few Diana Barrys, stood anxiously in line during open auditions for the play. The task of choosing Anne was not an easy one, director Mary Jeanne Reynales said.

"We have to love her," she said. "The perfect Anne, that's my quest."

A plethora of girls in braids filled the downstairs meeting room of the theater, as hopefuls scanned the pile of colored script pages, hoping for the perfect scene that would capture their particular Anne-ness. Several young women decided to pair up as best friends Anne and Diana, and ran through their lines together.

Kerry Edinger Snodgrass never read the books or watched the popular PBS series based on Montgomery's works, but seemed to capture Anne's soulful essence as she ran lines with Bethany Wilson, whose thick, dark hair already marked her as a strong contender for Diana.

"My best friend that I grew up with was obsessed with Anne, so I'm familiar with it," Edinger Snodgrass said. "She's got spunk."

Wilson wouldn't mind being Anne, but was more focused on portraying Anne's faithful friend. She had a little stronger grasp on the Montgomery material.

"I've seen the PBS series and I've read all the books," she said, and she liked Diana's character. "She's really sweet and sincere."

Friends Tracy Berg, a Corvallis High School junior, and Tanya Kornilovich, a Crescent Valley freshman, put aside their school rivalries to re-enact the scene where Anne and Diana meet.

"I'd like to be Anne because she has a lot of lines and I'm a line hog," Berg said. "A lot of people told me I'm like Anne because I cause a lot of trouble. I've never read the books so I don't know how much like her I am."

The actress with perhaps the most Anne-ish look was Caren Parmenter, who had pulled her thick, red hair into two braids. Petite and youthful, Parmenter admitted she was a 26-year-old trying out for the role of a 13-year-old, but felt that her deep love of Anne might make up for it.

"I've always wanted to be Anne. It's partially growing up with red hair and being able to relate with her as a child," she said. "I always wanted to have green eyes like she did."