--In Anastasia, leading lady Anya is shown the ropes of high society by Dmitry and
his hilarious co-conspirator Vlad, played by John Bolton. Bolton, recently showed us
the ins and outs of Anastasia at the Broadhurst Theatre. Check out these five
backstage secrets.
--Hey, everybody! It's your pal John Bolton.
I play Vlad in Anastasia, and today I am so excited to take you backstage at the
100-year-old Broadhurst Theatre for secrets backstage at Anastasia. And I'm
not talking about Christy Altomare's wooden leg. Let's go backstage!
So here we are backstage left. This is our Props Department. We have a beautiful
blue light around it so we can see them in the dark. Everything is labeled, a
place for everything and everything in its place. And of course our most
important prop in the show, the iconic music box. We use five different music
boxes during the show. The first is the lovely brand-new one that the dowager
gives little Anastasia on her birthday. The second is the one that we buy in the
market that is sealed shut in case we drop it, Derek Klena. Then here is the
music box that is in Dmitry's satchel that is opened. And this is the one that
Anastasia sings Once Upon a December to. And this is the beautiful brand-new one
that we use in the finale. Oh, and there's a spare, which makes five total. When we
first started the show, we kept running out of them
because they would be damaged. And so we now have five that we purchased from
eBay, for no small amount of money. So thank you eBay!
The next backstage secret—
we're still at the props table—our lovely paper props. The oddly German
newspaper that I'm reading, that Vlad is reading, our opera tickets, the train
tickets, all done based on actual photocopies of real train tickets.
You're gonna love this. This is the wanted poster that we use in the show
that I fold up briefly. And when we're fleeing for our lives on the train, these
photos were shot backstage during previews, and it looks like they were
certainly, but if you were to really translate this, it says London Police
it's a city for murder of police officer. Reward 500 rubles. And then this text is
all text from a play about Trotsky.
--Here we are stage right with my favorite set
piece in the show, the wonderful black board of Russian royalty, but over the,
long run some of the names have sort of jumped out at me as the people who
created this maybe being a little cheeky with us. For instance, Natalia Makarova,
famous russian ballerina, Milla Jovovich, the lovely model, who is very much still
with us. And then the one that has sort of piqued my interest
over time is Peter Lacey. Peter Lacey was a Russian Admiral in the 18th century,
who for 50 years was the most famous Russian alive, basically. He was in
the court of Peter the Great and several of the Empresses as well. And his name
was Peter Lacey. Who knew?
--Let's go see our next secret backstage.
--One of the centerpieces in our show is the
beautiful Swan Lake ballet in Act 2. People are always asking, Are those
special ballet dancers that you brought in just for that?
No! They play roles in
the entire show in the ensemble, have lots of quick changes. How do they have
time to warm up for this amazing difficult ballet with just a few minutes?
Well, turns out, that backstage we had installed a ballet barre for the lovely
Lyrica Woodruff, our special guest, who plays Odette, the star of the ballet.
[music]
--And our last secret: There are so many wonderful projections in our show by
Aaron Rhine, and his amazing team. And one of them contains a great inside joke for
fans of the film. This is our Russian, the peddlers market scene that you see
during Rumor in St. Petersburg, where Dmitry and I buy the music box. The
letters at the top are in the Cyrillic alphabet, and that is the Cyrillic B, A
R, T, O, K.
--[whispers] Bartok,
the bat,
from the movie.
He's in the show after all!
--Oh! One more thing.
Hey, everybody, it's Christy Altomare!
--Hi!
--Hey, Christy, how's the leg?
--It's a little sore. Wait,
how did you know that I had leg troubles?
--Wouldn't
you like to know...
--Hey guys! I got to drop you off here cuz we got a show to do, but thanks for
joining us for the backstage secrets at Anastasia! Come join us at the Broadhurst
Theatre. I'm gonna go do the show!
Bye!
[music]