Let us begin with the fact that I love musicals with all my heart. In my family, I have always been the only one who has enough love for them to pay a large amount of money when the tours come to Southern California. So I found myself unable to attend many because I was not allowed to go alone. Coming into college, I realized that finding the time, and most importantly the money to attend musicals that were touring near Irvine was more difficult than I thought. I was also unable to find anyone that shared my passion for musicals, making it difficult to get people who would be willing to pay to go watch one with me.
When I heard that Anastasia was currently touring and would be in Costa Mesa for the first two weeks of November, I knew I could not let this opportunity pass by. Growing up, I loved the 20th Century Fox animated film Anastasia because Anya’s character was not like the typical Disney princess I was so used to–she was a fighter. The soundtrack had also been forever ingrained in my brain at a very young age and the songs brought really good memories of my childhood. Using my resources, I went out on a quest to find friends that would be willing to go with me to experience Anastasia as a musical.
Photo by Danni Xu
It turned out that two of my coworkers from one of my jobs had already bought tickets to go see it and asked if I wanted to join them for the show. Of course I said yes. I decided to ask my other coworkers at my other job and one of them agreed to go with us. Surprisingly, we were able to purchase tickets for the two seats next to my coworkers, even though we bought them 3 weeks apart from each other.
I bought the tickets a month in advance and now all I could do was wait. It was a long four weeks as I made sure to remind them all that we were moving closer every single day. I think I was only making the wait worse. Finally, November 15th was here and we were ready to go. We all agreed to look our best because we wanted to feel fancy and ready to take on the night and the musical. We drove to Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, a beautiful theater that took my breath away and got me even more excited for the musical to begin. Then, we found our seats and waited for the show to begin.
Photo by Danni Xu
The show had a great start and the cast was already blowing me away with their voices, acting skills and the amazing costumes they had on. The story plot was overall similar to the 1997 film, but details were changed throughout which made the musical more realistic. I enjoyed these changes, one being the removal of the villain, Rasputin who had used magic to push the plot forward in the animated movie. Instead of Rasputin, the musical had the communist regime overthrow the Romanovs and control the people of Russia in the early 20th century. This made it more realistic and historically accurate, which I appreciated. There was still romance, all the other characters were present but the added scenes made the plot deeper and more meaningful.
The original songs were also all there and new songs showed up throughout the musical. All were amazing and conveyed many different kinds of emotions. I was sitting there feeling sad, excited, happy, confused and much more. The show went by so fast and before we knew it, the cast was bowing down and saying their last goodbyes to the audience. My friends and I left feeling great and discussed what we had enjoyed and what we had disliked. It is true that PCD, post-concert depression is real but so is post-musical depression. Although it has only been a week since I saw the musical, my friends and I have been continuously talking about how great it was and how we wish we could go back to the beginning of Friday night. A night to remember, once upon a November!