This year PCHS Theater performed Anastasia the musical. Although Anastasia is an interesting musical with a catchy soundtrack, the story behind it is even more interesting. The original story contained much more violence… and a lot less singing.  

Introducing Anya, formerly known as Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanov of Russia. During the assassination of the Romanov family, Anastasia supposedly forgot the music box her grandmother gifted her. When going back to get this music box, the rest of her family was murdered by the Bolsheviks. However, Anastasia, or should I say Anya, survived. Anya woke up in a hospital with amnesia and did not remember her past, later remembering small bits of her life. Anya remembers Paris, which is the place where her grandmother and her were supposed to go. Anya finds a common man from St. Petersburg named Dmitry, and his comrade Vlad who used to be a Count.  They teach her proper etiquette and start their journey together and end up in Paris, and later meet up with her grandmother. After Anastasia reunites with her Nana, she discovers that she has fallen in love with Dmitry and they run away together. 

In the original story, the Romanov family were all taken down by soldiers and were told they were taking a family photo. Once they were taken into a separate room for this “photo” they were all murdered. There were rumors that Anastasia was still alive, but more recent technology revealed that all family members were in the grave. 

The musical consists of a lighter tone while still maintaining a realistic storyline. This created rather challenging roles, including the part of Anastasia herself. The lead of this musical, Lily Houck, spoke of her experiences with this role. “The most stressful part of being in this musical is memorizing lines, which I am mostly over with now because that is the most time-sensitive part.” As the lead, she had the most lines and was required to memorize every word, dance, cue, and song when preparing for opening night. “My favorite part of this whole musical and process is probably the community. A lot of people I already knew were in it, as well as lots of new freshmen coming in from different programs that I got to meet. Everyone is so fun and supportive to be around.” The assistant director of this production, Dana Anger, talked about the part of this she was looking forward to the most. “They put a lot of work into this and I want to see it all come together because watching how they started during auditions vs how they are now is such a big difference, and once we got everyone together it was just absolutely fantastic.”