Show History

History

The original production was suggested to Wright and Forrest by Frank Loesser, and was at first to use the music of Tchaikovsky. Rachmaninoff was eventually selected in part because it was the composer himself who was instrumental in Anna's arranging real-life asylum to the United States. After 18 months of working on the script, eightysomething Guy Bolton -- a musical writer who in the late 'teens helped redefine American musical theatre -- called in George Abbott to help with the show. Eventually, Bolton withdrew and through Abbott, the show was produced under the aegis of United Artists, the motion picture company. Anya , which starred Constance Towers, Michael Kermoyan and Irra Petina, was the last musical to open (11/29/65) at the glorious Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City before it was razed. Critics largely faulted the changes that Abbott had made to the original story, but United Artists kept it open long enough (16 performances) to see if the release of the original cast album would help sales. After it closed, Abbott returned the rights to Wright and Forrest, who enjoyed several revivals in stock and one in 1980 (renamed I, Anastasia) in South Africa. In the 1982-83 season, Wright and Forrest, who were adjunct professors at the University of Miami, mounted a guest-artist production (starring Judy Kaye) of the show and interest was renewed. By 1986, they had brought writer Jerome Chodorov in on the script and were auditioning the revised version -- now called The Anastasia Game -- to producers. In October of 1989, Jo Sullivan Loesser, the widow of Frank Loesser (the man who set this all in motion 28 years before), arranged a production at the Merrimack Theatre in Lowell, Massachusetts, again starring Judy Kaye, as well as Len Cariou (Sweeney Todd, A Little Night Music, Teddy & Alice) and Steve Barton (The Phantom of the Opera). From that, a recording was made by Bay Cities records. By the time MTI picked up the material, it was renamed, succinctly, Anastasia Affaire.
An interesting footnote you may not want to tell your cast about: In October of 1994, DNA testing revealed that Anna Nielson was indeed not the long-lost Russian princess.