Anastasia is a beloved story, a Disney movie produced in 1997, formed into a hit musical. With this musical set to be performed at WHS as it’s fall musical, auditions just around the corner this Monday seem closer than ever.
While many have seen the Disney movie, the musical consists of quite a few changes to the plot. Taylor Nichols, resident Anastasia fanatic, lists that, “The main villain is more humanized. There’s less magic and unrealistic stuff, and there’s a whole lot more songs.”
Nichols starts the story as, “In the early 1900’s the Romanov family was killed,” destroyed by the communist Bolsheviks, the story centers around the historic folktale of Duchess Anastasia surviving.
Roughly ten years later, due to rumors of Anastasia’s survival, Anastasia’s grandmother, the Grand Duchess, puts up a reward for whoever can find Anastasia.
“Two guys who need the money from Anastasia’s grandmother try to find a girl who could pretend to be her, and an orphan who happens to be the real Anastasia is who they find,” Nichols continues.
The “two guys” are composed of Dimitri, “a con artist who starts out very selfish, but starts to care more about Anya throughout the show,” Nichols begins. And, Vladimir Popov; A middle-aged man, on his way to Paris to reunite with his ex-lover, Lily.
Anastasia, a noble-turned orphan, had been renamed Anya in her time being “dead.” Nichols describes her as, “A silly, very sassy girl-boss who will not let anybody stop her from finding out about her past.” Anya’s lost in her mind as past memories of a family she can’t quite place haze over. Still, she symbolizes hope as she continues to search for them and someday, reunite.
Her desire to find her family has Anya deciding to go along with the idea that she could be the rumored survivor of the Romanov family, creating a group of three making their way across the continent to reach Paris.
With nine auditions on her sleeve in the past three years, vice president of drama club, Kate Thomas, knows her way around an audition scene.
She explains that musical auditions differ from plays as, “You need to audition with your singing, your dancing, and your acting as well.”
This process starts with a dance audition on Monday, “your meeting the choreographer, and the choreographer of the show will teach you a couple steps, either from the show or just some to gauge your dance abilities,” Thomas describes. The next two days revolve around singing-based auditions.
Thomas explains, “You go in and our lovely choir director, Karen Bohart, will teach you parts of two songs. You can pick whichever song you think suits your voice better. You get time to practice singing it and getting more comfortable with it.”
The audition bit happens as “you go into the audition room and sing it for the band and choir directors Katz and Fitz,” Thomas alludes.
Even while theater consists mostly of watching the actors shine on stage, a certain group of people shine behind it. As the backbone of every production, Anastasia auditions come with a second branch of theater: The tech portion!
From costume/hair/makeup, lighting, sound, being a stage hand, rigging, to working the front of house, people have all sorts of ways to get involved with theater without the need to perform on stage.
Nichols and Thomas both find themselves incredibly enthusiastic to audition. Nichols is especially ecstatic to see the costumes that come about from a show set in the 1920s, even as she suffers heartache from the musical writing out her favorite dog character, Pooka.