Director Darko Tresnjak (A Gentleman's Guide to Love & Murder) will helming the all new Anastasia musical. The upcoming musical will be an all new beast based on but not beholden to the 1997 animated Fox film. The book for the musical will be written by Terrence McNally (It’s Only A Play, Catch Me if You Can) with music by Stephen Flaherty and Lyrics by Lynn Ahrens. Now, Tresnjak is opening up about the all new production, giving some details about the show’s casting and development.
Recently, Darko Tresnjak spoke to Journalinquirer.com about the development of the upcoming Anastasia musical:
“We have the rights to both the animated feature and the original Fox movie with Helen Hayes and Ingrid Bergman. Terrence is really writing his own version of the story. We’ve kept, I think, six songs from the movie, but there are 16 new numbers. We’ve kept the best parts of the animated movie, but it really is a new musical.”
Tresnjak was then asked if he was ready to announce the show’s cast to which he replied:
“No. We’re pretty much done with casting, but no. What’s interesting is a generation of young women grew up singing some of those songs. Especially the Academy Award nominated “Journey to the Past”. So it was a little bit like auditioning for Scarlett O’Hara. They would come in and some of them couldn’t control their voices. They were so emotional that they got to sing the song in front of the authors.”
Are you excited to see Anastasia come to life on the stage? What songs do you hope made the cut? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section at the bottom of the page.
