OTHS thespians excited to present grand, opulent musical ‘Anastasia’ this weekend

In a return to form, the O’Fallon Township High School’s theatre and music departments are presenting a lavish and large-scale musical production this spring.

The legend of the Russian princess, “Anastasia,” will be brought to the Milburn campus auditorium for four performances this Thursday, March 31, through Sunday, April 3.

Director Eve Knipp said it has appeal for audiences of all ages, with elegant music, engaging characters and beautiful costumes helping to tell a fairytale story.

“We’re excited about it,” she said. “It’s so nice to have live theater again.”

The musical’s performance rights were made available for this year, so they jumped at the opportunity to be one of the first among metropolitan St. Louis area schools to present it.

“This is a really big deal for us,” she said.

The story takes place nine years after the Russian Revolution in 1918 — that’s when Anastasia’s royal family (Romanov) was executed by the Communist Bolsheviks. Legend has it she escaped her family’s murder, but hit her head while running away, causing her to lose all her memories.

In the musical, she is now grown up and calls herself “Anya.” She meets two conmen — Dmitry, and Vlad — who are looking for a girl to pretend she is the lost princess, take her to Paris and meet with her grandmother. They think the dowager empress will give them a substantial reward for recovering this long-lost member of the royal family. Through the journey, she slowly starts to regain her memory, and figures out she is indeed the real Anastasia.

“I fell in love with the music,” Knipp said. “It’s a beautiful story of self-discovery. What does Anya figure out? She discovers who she was, but ultimately, she does work on who she will be.”

But ambitious works are nothing new for OTHS, which has produced “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” “Big Fish,” “Shrek” and “Mary Poppins.” Because of the coronavirus pandemic, they shifted the 2020 spring musical, “The Addams Family,” to a 90-minute “Dramatic Concert Version” in spring 2021, performed by a mask-wearing, socially distanced cast of 27.

Cut to this week, when the creative forces come together to put on a show — 42 in the cast — including six ballet dancers, 25 in the crews behind-the-scenes (lights, costumes, backstage, set construction) and 10-15 in the band, under the direction of Melissa Gustafson-Hinds.

“It’s a beast of a show. We had our core thespians try out, but then we had a lot of new kids come out — many freshmen and sophomores,” Knipp said.

“It was a little daunting at first, but it was also a breath of fresh air. We get to be together, we get to create something beautiful and have fun. Where will this journey be taking us?”

Recovering from COVID

After experiencing a global pandemic that altered daily life, Knipp said some kids were broken and traumatized during the COVID-19 surges and shutdowns. In comparing it to Anastasia’s ordeal, she commented: “Everybody’s been through a lot these past two years. Traumatic events can change anyone’s life, but it also can be cathartic — ‘Who is it that I want to be?’ This helped the process a lot. We wanted it to be positive,” she said.

With the teens used to wearing masks, challenges included re-learning facial expressions — and getting used to being around people again.

“They forgot how to be together,” she said.

While the cast was rehearsing, the school transitioned to a policy of wearing masks as an option. Knipp said some do, some don’t, but a mom found flesh-colored masks for people who want to wear them onstage.

The material was also a teachable opportunity about world history and events.

“How did this shape the course of history? We have the cast do research and tell me about their characters, an origin story,” she said.

The real story of Anastasia

The real story is that Czar Nicholas II and his family — his wife, Alexandra; son, Alexis; and four daughters, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia — were taken captive after he abdicated the throne March 15, 1917. They were executed by a firing squad July 17, 1918, along with four of their servants, but no bodies were immediately found. Reports were so unclear the dowager empress — then in Crimea — doubted the news of her family’s death.

A 1956 “what if” movie “Anastasia” starred Ingrid Bergman, who won an Oscar as Best Actress. The fictional story was again told in a 1997 animated musical, with music by Stephen Flaherty and David Newman (whose father, Alfred, was Oscar nominated for the original 1956 film), and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens.

Flaherty and Ahrens are the Tony Award-winning composer and lyricist of “Ragtime” and “Seussical,” and earned two Academy Award nominations for the movie — musical score and song “Journey to the Past.”

The film was adapted into a 2017 Broadway musical featuring their music, and besides the power ballad “Journey to the Past,” includes “In My Dreams,” “Once Upon a December” and “In a Crowd of Thousands.” Playwright Terence McNally wrote the book, from the play by Marcelle Maurette, as adapted by Guy Bolton.

More about musical

The musical’s costumes are an opulent showcase, with design by Terry Pattison, who also designed the set, which includes a train and a 4-foot-wide chandelier.

In the lead role is a sophomore, Ava Hettenhausen, who moved to O’Fallon last year from Switzerland.

“She is brilliant. When she auditioned, she was just Anastasia,” Knipp said.

Knipp is in her third year as the fall play and spring musical director, but spent five years as the assistant, and previously worked on musicals at the First Baptist Academy. Heidi Buch, an OTHS alum, is helping her with this show.

Ticket info

“Anastasia” will be presented Thursday through Sunday, March 31-April 3, with a 7 p.m. showtime, except for Sunday, which is at 3 p.m. Tickets online are $10 for students and $12 for adults and can be purchased at OTHS.BookTix.com. Otherwise, they are $15 at the door on the day of the show. Online ticket sales close one hour before showtime.

For the audience, the school policy is now “mask optional.”