Anastasia

Anastasia: Journey to Indy

Famous musical brings long-lost princess to the Murat

Aislinn Wilford wilfoais000@hsestudents.org

Anastasia, the musical based on the 21st Century Fox film, theaters in 1997, features many magical moments, most notably: The character came to Indianapolis from Oct. 18-23, which gave Hoosiers the chance to see this Broadway production. “I really love the storyline and a lot of the songs are really iconic,” said sophomore Adelaide Akins, who has said she’s taken an active part in theatre since fifth grade. Akins is currently slotted to play Paulette in Fishers High School’s upcoming musical, ‘Legally Blonde.’ She expressed her wish to perform in Anastasia one day. “I don’t really have a specific role in mind that would be my favorite, but I honestly think that even being in the chorus for that show would be really fun,” said Akins. Anastasia has featured in many big cities since its introduction to Broadway in 2017. Junior Madelyn Garber planned on seeing it with her family over fall break. According to Garber, Indiana is practically in the middle of nowhere, so nobody would ever come here. “I don’t think that anybody would ever think first ‘Let’s go to Indiana!’ I just think that’s kind of remarkable,” she said. The movie that this musical was based on, which hit Anya’s dream sequence in “Once Upon a December.” Translating onscreen magic to a live performance would be a challenge for any production. The audience’s suspension of belief could depend on how the presentation is managed. “I want it to flow, if I’m going to watch it live,” said Garber. “If they make it so that it flows better and props just ‘magically appear’ on the stage I’ll find it more interesting and I’ll be able to focus on the characters.” While not frequent, there are some big changes between the movie and the musical. In the preBroadway performance, Anya’s dress was different from the original movie version. When it hit Broadway, it was changed again to make it resemble the movie version more closely. The musical has already made changes regarding the antagonist and will possibly make more. “I’m excited to see the music, and to see how they portray the characters differently, because you can’t make everything exactly the same because it’s live versus tv,” said Garber. “So, I think it’ll be really interesting to see the differences in that.” Throughout the story there are many different scene changes. The characters travel all the way from St. Petersburg, Russia to Paris, France. Assumably, the change in scenes would be very difficult, but freshman Lucia Camacho thinks they were one of the most interesting parts. “I just wanted to see the sets… and how the actors changed in and out of their costumes really easily and how fast they were and how they could memorize choreography,” she said. Camacho saw the production over fall break on Oct. 17 and was excited to see her first musical in person. “It felt really cool,” she said. “It felt as if I was in the moment.”

Cosplayer greyloch poses as Princess Anastasia. Photo used with permission of Flickr.