ON MILWAUKEE: Marcus Center's "Anastasia"

The musical begins with a dramatic flashback to the end of the Romanov family's reign, marked with stunning white, gold and glittering traditional costumes, crowns studded with sparkling jewels, and gala balls that look like a snow globe fantasy come to life. (Linda Cho's stunning costume design covers many countries, time periods and social classes.) There we meet Little Anastasia (a perky Delilah Rose Pellow in the performance I attended) and the Dowager Empress (Joy Franz, whose characterization unfortunately veered to melodrama and whose voice was not up to the task of delivering her solos).

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