It was a gray November day, but some of the cast and crew of the upcoming production of “Anastasia” at Greenville Theatre offered a vibrant antidote.
The two leads, Adell Ehrhorn and Andrew Anderson, posed in full costume under the lights for photos and video to promote the show. The finished product will appear effortless but every shot involved hard work. Costume manager Thomas Brooks fixed Ehrhorn’s crown again and again. Makeup artist Paul David touched up lipstick and applied powder as the actors sweated in their wigs and period clothing.
“One of the beauties of theater is that there’s a sense of magic around what it is that we create as artists, and it feels, and should feel, effortless for an audience to just fully escape into the world that we’ve created,” said Max Quinlan, the theater’s producing artistic director.
“Anastasia” tells the story of Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanov as she struggles to find her identity during the Russian Revolution in the early 20th century. The show was inspired by the 1997 animated Disney film of the same name. The show will run Dec. 5-22.
During the shoot, Quinlan instructed Ehrhorn and Anderson on how to pose and emote for the camera. Local photographer Will Crooks and marketing director Jamie Walters, who was shooting video, helped the pair hit their marks.
“And Andrew, for this action,” Quinlan said, “for the physicality of it, it’s almost like you’re breathing will into her.”
The goal for the materials is to capture a natural moment, even though the photos are meticulously posed.
“Adell, drop your chin just a hair toward me,” Crooks said. “Perfect. Lift it just a millimeter.”
The moment lifted the curtain on the effort it takes to bring a production to life.
“It takes so much time and energy and heart to build a set, to create costumes, to design a stage, to bring all of these storytelling elements together,” Quinlan said. “It takes a lot of blood, sweat and tears to do all of that. And our goal is for the audience to never see any of it and fully be transported and believe that it’s magic that we’ve just created.”
Greenville Theatre is at 444 College St. in downtown Greenville. Tickets for the show go on sale Nov. 18 at greenvilletheatre.org/gt_events/anastasia.
