“Anastasia” Brings to the Stage One of History’s Most Romantic Myths 

“Anastasia” Brings to the Stage One of History’s Most Romantic Myths

Christy Altomare (Anya) and Derek Klena (Dmitry).

Broadway has been a mixed bag when it comes to the musical adaptations of animated features: smash hits with “The Lion King” and “Aladdin,” also-rans with “The Little Mermaid,” “Tarzan,” and “Shrek.”  

Now comes “Anastasia,” based on the 1997 film from Fox Animation Studios, which was a global success at the box-office. The new musical will have its world premiere from May 12-June 12 at Connecticut’s Hartford Stage, which developed the 2014 Tony winner “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder.” Darko Tresnjak, the Hartford’s artistic director, won a Tony Award for directing that musical and is reprising his duties on “Anastasia.” Veteran playwright Terrence McNally (“The Visit”) has written the book, Joshua Bergasse is choreographing, and Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty are supplementing the half-dozen songs they wrote for the film with at least a dozen more. “Journey to the Past,” one of the original songs, received an Oscar nomination. 

“Anastasia” tells one of history’s most enduring legends. In 1918 when the Bolsheviks murdered the family of Tsar Nicholas II, the rumor arose that one of the children, the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nicolaevna, managed to escape. Numerous imposters attempted to assume that identity but the most compelling among them was Anna Anderson. Her story was the inspiration of a 1953 Broadway play, which was then the basis for the 1956 Oscar-winning film starring Ingrid Bergman and Yul Brynner. Brynner played a Russian émigré who falls in love with Anna while grooming her to be convincing enough to the Russian royals in exile to claim a sizable fortune.  

The animated version kept much of the plot intact, but the new musical will emphasize some of the darker elements of the story and the innate desire for humans to believe in fairy tales. This is especially true when the film’s heroine Anya — who is suffering from amnesia suffered from a fall during the escape — is presented in Paris to the Dowager Empress Marie Fedorovna, the grandmother of Anastasia.

Tresnjak maintains that it’s irrelevant that the real Anna Anderson was conclusively proven to be a fraud through DNA testing after the bodies of the Tsar and his family was exhumed in Ekaterinburg, Russia in 1991. It was, after all, just a confirmation of what was believed to be true all along. “What matters is that a fabrication gave birth to a myth and a modern romance,” said the director. “What matters is our need to believe in stories of improbably yet heartbreaking reunions.”

The new production, backed by Stage Entertainment (“Rocky, the Musical”), will star Christy Altomare (“Mamma Mia!”) in the title role and  Derek Klena (“Dogfight”) as Dimitri, a romantic interest who concocts the ruse to pass her off as the duchess only to realizes later that she may be the true Anastasia. What is apparently new in the musical version is the desire of the Dowager Empress (Mary Beth Peil) to have her granddaughter remain anonymous. “If you lost your whole family and found out that one grandchild has managed to survive, why would you want to put them in the way of assassins?” said Tresnjak.

The director added that he was taken aback at the enduring popularity of the animated film.  “When we first announced that we were doing this musical, there was at least 10,000 hits on one website alone within the hour,” he said.  “The people just love Stephen and Lynn’s songs. They go to the heart.”   

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