Journey To The Past: Dressing Anastasia On Broadway

Directed by Tony Award winner Darko Tresnjak, Anastasia premiered at Hartford Stage in 2016 and is currently running on Broadway at the Broadhurst Theatre. The production received 13 Outer Critics Circle Awards nominations—the most for any musical this year—as well as nine Drama Desk Award nominations and two Tony Award nominations. Recognized for magical designs, the creative team includes Alexander Dodge, sets; Aaron Rhyne, projections; Donald Holder, lights; Peter Hylenski, sound; and Linda Cho, costumes. Read about the set designprojection design, lighting design, and sound design.

While the musical draws heavily from the animated film, Cho was told she did not need to recreate the film’s wardrobe, so she started fresh, with one exception. “At Hartford Stage, a number of fans of the film—‘fanastasias’ they call themselves—expressed sadness that the dress she wears to the ballet in Paris was blue in the film, but I had designed a pale pink one,” the designer explains. When Anastasia moved to Broadway, the dress changed to a deep blue to honor the fans. Cho’s design has earned her nominations for an Outer Critics Award, a Drama Desk Award, and a Tony Award—one of the musical’s two Tony nods, including Best Featured Actress in a Musical.

 

From Russian underclass and communist soldiers to formal dresses and nightclub wear, Cho had many eras to research. “I have several inches thick of bibles of research to cover all that territory,” she laughs. Cho pulls her inspiration from various sources, including the tsar himself. “Tsar Nicholas was an early photography enthusiast and took thousands of pictures of the royal family,” states Cho. “Some of the pictures were hand-tinted pink, because they only had black and white photography then.” In the prologue, the Romanov sisters are all dressed in a pale pink, while the rest of the family are in white and silver like ghostly silhouettes.

Cho keeps a tight color palette for each specific scene throughout the musical. Browns, blacks, and greys depict revolutionary Russia. Gutav Klimt’s Portrait Of Adele Bloch-Bauer inspired the costume colors, textures, and patterns for the Neva Club in Paris. Guests at the ballet wear ochres, golds, and browns, and Rhyne’s projections match the golden palette. But when Anastasia enters in her blue gown, the visuals melt to blue.

 

The sheer volume and complexity of the costumes required up to 35 shops and vendors across the US. “It has been a challenge just to maintain and store the costumes,” says Cho. “In the theatre, some of the dressing rooms are on the sixth floor, and they created a pulley system just because of the volume. Trying to carry all those things up the stairs is impossible.”

Cho is pleased with the move to Broadway where suddenly “things looked sparklier and brighter, and everything got boosted up somehow.” She credits Holder’s lighting design and improved equipment for the change. “I thought his work was pretty beautiful,” she says.

While DNA testing has proven that the Grand Duchess Anastasia did not survive her family’s execution, thus disproving the claims of five separate imposters, the creative team’s satisfaction with the production is no con. “I’ve never worked on a show quite like this before, but I have the feeling I will again,” says Dodge. “I feel that incorporating projections in the way that we did makes me wonder how musicals will solve things in the future.”

Anastasia is an incredible opportunity for a projection designer to showcase a new way that video can be used in a musical,” adds Rhyne. “This is the first project I’ve ever had that I just woke up every day and loved going to work. I loved the whole team, the writers, the actors, and the other designers. It was just like a big family. It has been an honor to be a part of the show.”

For more, read the June 2017 issue of Live Design.