twi-ny recommended events

PEN WORLD VOICES FESTIVAL: GENDER AND POWER

pen world voices

Multiple venues
April 30 – May 7, free – $35
www.worldvoices.pen.org

The thirteenth annual PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature turns its attention to a hot-button issue in America and around the world, taking a hard look at gender and power. The festival runs April 30 to May 7, featuring panel discussions, lectures, readings, plays, Q&As, film screenings, literary pub crawls, and more. The curators for this year’s festival, which explores bigotry, misogyny, and xenophobia as well, are Susan Bernofsky, Jennifer Finney Boylan, Kim Chan, Ram Devineni, Mona Eltahawy, Marlon James, Saeed Jones, Meg Lemke, Valeria Luiselli, Paul Morris, Chinelo Okparanta, Steph Opitz, Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf, and Andy Tepper, chaired by Rob Spillman. “PEN America launched the World Voices Festival after 9/11 at a moment when the U.S. was becoming cut off from the rest of the globe,” PEN America executive director Suzanne Nossel said in a statement. “Amid visa bans and an America First foreign policy, World Voices is now an important antidote to an America at risk of only talking to itself, fanning baseless fears, and damaging relations with allies and people around the world. This year’s festival will center on both celebration and mobilization, rallying around PEN America’s mission to defend free expression and enable the breadth of voices vital to an open marketplace of ideas.” Below is one highlight for each day; also among the more than 150 participants from 40 countries are Carrie Brownstein, Patti Smith, Salman Rushdie, Laurie Anderson, Rita Mae Brown, Jessica Hagedorn, José Emilio Pacheco, Eileen Myles, Trevor Noah, Eiko Otake, and Ani DiFranco.

Sunday, April 30
Festival Prelude! A House Divided, the Great Hall, the Cooper Union, free with advance reservations, 3:00

Monday, May 1
World Voices: International Play Festival 2017, featuring Patricia Cornelius’s Shit (4:00), Natal’ya Vorozhbit’s Take Out the Rubbish, Sasha (6:00), and Mîrza Metîn’s Hungry Dogs (8:00), CUNY Segal Theatre, free

Tuesday, May 2
Exposure: Politics, Sex, and Power, with Rokudenashiko, Ali Asgar, and Mohsen Namjoo, moderated by Alexandra Munroe, Dixon Place, $15, 7:00

Wednesday, May 3
Portraying Gay Male Life Today, with Tobin Low, Andrew Solomon, Garth Greenwell, Ali Asgar, and Edouard Louis, the Greene Space at WNYC, $15, 7:00

Thursday, May 4
Gender, Power, and Authoritarianism in the Dystopian Age, with Marge Piercy, Alice Sola Kim, Namwali Sperwell, and Basma Abdel Aziz, New School Auditorium, $15, 6:30

Friday, May 5
Pen vs. Sword: Satire vs. the State, with Mo Rocca, Abdourahman Waberi, Aleksandar Hemon, Masha Gessen, and others, moderated by Elissa Schappel, St. Josephs College, $10, 7:00

Saturday, May 6
Women in Ink, with Roz Chast, Liana Finck, Rayma Suprani, and Emily Flake, moderated by Liza Donnelly, Dixon Place, $20, 12 noon

Saturday, May 6
and
Sunday, May 7
The Arthur Miller Freedom to Write Lecture: Masha Gessen and Samantha Bee, the Great Hall, the Cooper Union, $35, 6:00

Sunday, May 7
Unapologetically Afro-Latina, with Dr. Marta Moreno Vega, Nancy Morejon, Magdalena Albizu, and Amanda Alcantara, Apollo Theater, free with advance reservations, 4:15

IN THE BOOM BOOM ROOM

Go-go dancers strut their stuff in Chain Theatre revival of David Rabe’s In the Boom Boom Room (photos by Matt Wells and Victor Andrew Heras)

American Theatre of Actors
314 West 54th St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Through May 6, $18
www.chaintheatre.org

Not only did the Chain Theatre get the blessing of Tony-winning playwright David Rabe to stage an extremely rare revival of his 1973 drama, In the Boom Boom Room, but it got Rabe himself, who sat in on rehearsals and made tweaks to the script for this new production. The little-seen work debuted on Broadway at the Vivian Beaumont, running for barely more than a month yet earning three Tony nominations, including Best Play; the all-star cast included Madeline Kahn, Robert Loggia, Mary Woronov, and Charles Durning. The next year the show moved to the Public Theater in a version directed by Robert Hedley and starring Ellen Greene, Christopher Lloyd, and Fred Grandy. There may be no well-known actors in the Chain Theatre revival, running through May 6 at the American Theatre of Actors on West Fifty-Fourth St., but that’s no reason to skip this hardscrabble production, which packs a wallop that sneaks up on you. The show takes place in Philadelphia in 1973, where Chrissy (Nina Kassa) is a go-go dancer who dreams of better venues. She lives alone in a small apartment where men keep barging in on her, starting with her father, Harold (Pete Mattaliano), who has been in and out of jail and in and out of Chrissy’s life. She’s also visited by her downstairs neighbor, gay nudnik Guy (Deven Anderson); Eric (Kyle Kirkpatrick), a reserved, straitlaced young man who takes her out on a date; and Al (Kirk Gostkowski) and Ralphie (Paul Terkel), a couple of lowlifes who have leered at her at the club and now want more. Chrissy, who comes from the northwestern neighborhood of Manayunk, appears to be sweet and friendly, but there is something a little off about her; in addition to not being very bright or street-smart, she’s got some demons buried deep inside her.

Al (Kirk Gostkowski) and Ralphie (Paul Terkel) have plans for Chrissy (Nina Kassa) in David Rabe revival (photos by Matt Wells and Victor Andrew Heras)

Chrissy works at Big Tim’s Boom Boom Room with Melissa (Alexandra Tabas), Vicki (Tina Marie Tanzer), and Sally (Cori Stolbun), who are much more experienced and savvy, as well as Susan (Christina Elise Perry), who runs the place and takes a special interest in Chrissy. The women are very clear that they are not strippers or hookers, a fate they desperately want to avoid. Aaron Gonzalez’s set goes back and forth between Chrissy’s apartment, centered by her bed, and the go-go club, with a platform where the women dance in sexy outfits designed by Barbara Erin Delo. (The bed slides under the platform to differentiate between the locations.) The play drags at times and is too long at more than two and a half hours; in addition, the story is a familiar one, yet Rabe’s incisive writing, Greg Cicchino’s steady direction, and the solid ensemble’s intimacy make for an appealing production.

In the published edition of In the Boom Boom Room, Rabe, who also nabbed Best Play Tony nominations for HurlyBurly and Streamers and won the statue for Sticks and Bones, includes the following epigraph, a quote from St. Thomas Aquinas: “The woman is subject to the man on account of the weakness of her nature, both of mind and body. / Man is the beginning of the woman and her end, just as God is the beginning and the end of every creature. / Woman is in subjugation according to the law of nature, but a slave is not. / Children ought to love their father more than their mother.” The civil rights and women’s movements seem to have bypassed this small, seedy section of Philly, where women are mere playthings, subject to sexual abuse. (Rabe, who was born in Iowa, got his master’s from Villanova in Philadelphia in 1968.) Chrissy might think she knows what she wants, but she makes bad decisions, especially with men, whom she is afraid to displease. The open door of her apartment — which Chrissy is sure she always locks — is a metaphor for her inability to properly protect her body and remain safe, a theme more relevant than ever in 2017, as a new administration pushes policies that seek to put power over women’s bodies back into men’s hands, restricting access to birth control, denying maternity care, and “grabbing pussy,” to quote the president himself. In the Boom Boom Room serves as a potent reminder that as a society, we might not have come nearly as far as we thought.

HAROLD AND LILLIAN: A HOLLYWOOD LOVE STORY

Documentary captures the long love affair between Harold and Lillian Michelson and Hollywood

HAROLD AND LILLIAN: A HOLLYWOOD LOVE STORY (Daniel Raim, 2016)
Quad Cinema
34 West 13th St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Opens Friday, April 28
212-255-2243
www.quadcinema.com
www.haroldandlillian.com

Burton and Taylor. Bogie and Bacall. Gable and Lombard. Michelson and Michelson? In Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story, documentarian Daniel Raim traces the sixty-year relationship between storyboard artist and production designer Harold Michelson and his wife, film researcher extraordinaire Lillian, and their roles in Hollywood’s Golden Age and beyond. New York City native Harold was a bombardier navigator in WWII who developed a talent for illustration. Lillian lived in a series of orphanages, seeking to be part of a family. She accepted Harold’s offer to move to Los Angeles to be with him mainly because she had no better plan for her life — and his mother didn’t approve. But soon their love blossomed, as did their impact on the movie industry. Harold had a natural ability for creating storyboards that incorporated camera angles and other technical elements that was a boon for directors; meanwhile, Lillian did extensive research for a myriad of films, doing whatever it took in order to make sure every possible detail was correct, from major plot points to clothing and household objects in backgrounds. Among those paying tribute to the happy couple, whose work was often uncredited, are Danny DeVito, Francis Ford Coppola, Mel Brooks, and such production designers as Gene Allen, James D. Bissell, Rick Carter, Richard Sylbert, and Tom Walsh. Raim, who wrote, directed, produced (with his wife, Jennifer Raim), and shot (with Battiste Fenwick) the documentary, includes clips from many of the films Harold and/or Lillian worked on, including The Ten Commandments, Full Metal Jacket, Rosemary’s Baby, Spaceballs, The Birds, Scarface, and Winter Kills, in which Harold discusses how his storyboards were turned into a gripping scene.

Patrick Mate’s storyboards follow relationship between Harold and Lillian

The film features new interviews with Lillian along with archival footage of Harold and Lillian, from photographs and home movies to old interviews as well as love letters they wrote to each other; animator Patrick Mate has also created numerous storyboards, in Harold’s style, about the Michelsons that are a beautiful homage. The film focuses on how Harold and Lillian, who were honored with the American Academy of Dramatic Arts lifetime achievement award last year, didn’t merely perform tasks given to them by producers and directors but used their unique skills to bring something extra to the projects they worked on, elements that no one else was capable of providing. Raim previously made the Oscar-nominated The Man on Lincoln’s Nose and Something’s Gonna Live, both about one of his teachers, production designer Robert Boyle, and he completes the trilogy with Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story, a classy film about a classy couple. Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story opens April 28 at the newly renovated Quad Cinema, with Raim participating in Q&As at the 7:15 shows on April 28 & 29.

OSLO

Mona Juul (Jennifer Ehle) and Terje Rød-Larsen (Jefferson Mays) try not to get their signals crossed in Oslo (photo by T. Charles Erickson)

Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center Theater
150 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
Tuesday – Saturday through June 18, $87-$147
212-362-7600
www.lct.org

In 1993, unbeknownst to the rest of the world, a Norwegian couple reached out to Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization in an effort to foster peace in the Middle East. The clandestine back-channel talks, which led to the historic and controversial Oslo Accords, are dramatized in J. T. Rogers’s gripping play, Oslo, which has seamlessly moved from Lincoln Center’s downstairs Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater to its Broadway venue, the Vivian Beaumont. The always excellent Jefferson Mays stars as sociologist Terje Rød-Larsen, the head of the Fafo Institute for Applied Sciences, who sees such events as the tearing down of the Berlin Wall as an opportunity to facilitate the peace process between violent enemies Israel and the PLO. “My God, if Leningrad can revert to St. Petersburg, anything is possible,” he says. “Are you seriously suggesting Rabin talk peace with the man the Israelis call Hitler in his lair?” Norwegian foreign minister Johan Jorgen Holst (T. Ryder Smith) asks in disbelief. “Johan Jorgen, you don’t make peace with the people you have dinner parties with. You make peace with the people who bomb your markets and blow up your buses,” Larsen answers. Larsen is joined by his wife, Mona Juul (Jennifer Ehle), who occasionally addresses the audience directly, as a sort of narrator. “To clarify: Johan Jorgen is married to Marianne [Henny Russell], who works for Terje, who is married to me, who, as of tomorrow, works for Johan Jorgen. In Norway we take nepotism to an entirely new level,” she says with a smile. Larsen and Juul believe that by using “gradualism,” they can bring Israel and the PLO to the table, even though Israeli law makes it illegal for an Israeli official to speak with a member of the PLO.

Food serves as a key feature in negotiations between Israel and the PLO in OSLO (photo by T. Charles Erickson)

Food and drink play key roles in negotiations between Israel and the PLO in Oslo (photo by T. Charles Erickson)

“This new model — my model — is rooted not in the organizational but in the personal, a process of negotiation allowing the most implacable of adversaries to focus on a single issue of contention, resolve it, then move on to the next single issue, as they gradually build a bond of trust,” Larsen explains. Secretly arriving in Norway are PLO finance minister Ahmed Qurie (Anthony Azizi), aka Abu Ala; official PLO liaison Hassan Asfour (Dariush Kashani), an avowed communist with an intense distrust of Jews; and Haifa economics professors Yair Hirschfeld (Daniel Oreskes) and Ron Pundak (Daniel Jenkins), who have been chosen by Israeli deputy foreign minister Yossi Beilin (Adam Dannheisser) to represent Israel in an unofficial capacity. Larsen and Juul put their plan into action, attempting to inject a positive attitude into the proceedings in order to get the negotiators talking. They are assisted by housekeeper Toril Grandal (Russell), who makes a mean plate of waffles, and her husband, groundsman Finn Grandal (Smith). Soon, despite their massive differences, Abu Al, Hirschfeld, Asfour, and Pundak are making progress, but without official acknowledgment from Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres (Oreskes) and prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, the talks threaten to fall apart, until wildly unpredictable Israeli foreign ministry director-general Uri Savir (Michael Aronov) shows up.

Sociopolitical playwright Rogers (Madagascar, The Overwhelming) was introduced by director Bartlett Sher to the real Larsen and Juul following a performance of their previous Lincoln Center Theater collaboration, Blood and Gifts (which also starred Mays and Aronov), about diplomacy during the Soviet war in Afghanistan. Thus, Oslo is based on firsthand research, although Rogers points out, “To be clear, it is my version of this history.” Michael Yeargan’s set features a large backdrop with double doors through which the four negotiators often disappear; the audience is not privy to what is going on behind. In addition, huge images of Middle East violence are projected onto the wall. Together, the size of the wall and the videos make Larsen and Juul often appear small, which was the couple’s intention, as they saw themselves as mere facilitators, minor players in this major undertaking. Tony winner Mays (A Gentleman’s Guide to Murder, I Am My Own Wife) is outstanding as Larsen, balancing fear and excitement as he puts himself out on a limb in trying to accomplish the seemingly impossible. Tony winner Ehle (The Coast of Utopia, The Real Thing) excels as his equal partner in this dangerous venture, the unseen backbone ostensibly serving as an amiable hostess and direct liaison to the audience. Despite its nearly three-hour length, the play flies by, with Tony winner Sher (South Pacific, The Light in the Piazza) keeping things moving at a smooth police-procedural-like pace. Rogers’s script melds the comic and the surreal, the serious and the wacky in translating this most unlikely of scenarios into an utterly gripping yet tenderly intimate tale. Of course, nearly a quarter-century later, peace is still a pipe dream in the Middle East, and the theory of gradualism has not exactly taken hold in international diplomacy. But for a fascinating moment in time, two Norwegians offered more than a glimmer of hope, something the world can use a whole lot more of.

WFMU RECORD FAIR 2017

record fair

Who: Live performances by Bloodshot Bill, the Atlantic Thrills, Baby Shakes, Ronnie Fujiyama, Matmos with Chuck Bettis, and Laurice and more than two hundred record and CD dealers
What: WFMU Record Fair
Where: Brooklyn Expo Center, 79 Franklin St. between Noble & Oak Sts., Greenpoint
When: April 28-30, $7 (weekend pass $25)
Why: Hot on the heels of last weekend’s tenth annual Record Store Day, independent, freeform, listener-supported, noncommercial radio station WFMU (91.1) is hosting its yearly record fair, taking place over three days at the Brooklyn Expo Center. In addition to the above live acts, there will be screenings of Brendan Toller’s Danny Says, followed by a Q&A with the director, Christopher Sullivan’s Consuming Spirits, editor Aaron Schimberg’s Triumph of the Il, and Barbara Kopple’s Miss Sharon Jones! WFMU will also be broadcasting live from the venue. For a two-dollar-off admission coupon — the equivalent of a pair of $1 LPS — go here.

OBIT.

Bruce Weber discusses the intricacies of writing obituaries in surprisingly charming documentary

OBIT.: LIFE ON DEADLINE (Vanessa Gould, 2016)
Film Forum, 209 West Houston St., 212-727-8110
Lincoln Plaza Cinema, 1886 Broadway at 63rd St., 212-757-2280
Opens Wednesday, April 26
www.facebook.com

Vanessa Gould’s surprising charmer, Obit., might primarily be about the documentation of individual death by the New York Times obituaries desk, but at its heart it’s a celebration of life. “It’s almost never depressing because we’re almost always writing about someone in his or her eighties or nineties who has died after a long, rich, creative, fulfilling life,” obituaries senior writer Margalit Fox explains. “In an obit of eight hundred words or so, maybe a sentence or two will be about the death and the other ninety percent is about the life. So it’s counterintuitive, ironic even, but obits have next to nothing to do with death and, in fact, absolutely everything to do with the life.” Inspired by an obituary the New York Times ran about a friend of hers at her urging, Gould spent about a week in the Times offices, capturing the obit writers and editors in action as they do extensive research (online and on the phone), work hard on the lede, carefully fact check, and get just the right photo for what they consider legitimate news stories, not simply memorials to the deceased. “It’s a once-only chance to make the dead live again,” obituaries writer (and former food critic) William Grimes notes. They are shown deciding whose life was newsworthy, keeping to a specific word count, and pitching for better placement of their story while attempting to capture the essence of the individual they are writing about. When researching the death of typewriter repairman Manson Whitlock, Fox hits the keys of an old Royal, attempting to incorporate the sound and feel of the instrument in her article. In addition to the obviously famous and influential, they also cover such people as Slinky creator Richard T. James, Bill Haley bass player Marshall Lytle, television remote inventor Gene Polley, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka plaintiff Zelma Henderson, aviatrix Elinor Smith, advertising executive Richie Rich, Skylab saviour Jack A. Kinzler, and William P. Wilson, the JFK aide who helped orchestrate John F. Kennedy’s critical televised debate win over Vice President Richard M. Nixon. Gould’s film includes archival photographs and film footage of many of the obituary subjects and the times in which they lived, although some of the clips are not completely relevant. Still, they are cool to see and flesh out the documentary with visual splendor and fun details.

Archivist Jeff Roth runs the massive New York Times archives known as the morgue

The film also features obituaries desk editor William McDonald, who points out that they are writers who never get to meet or speak directly with their subjects; former obituaries writer Paul Vitello, who refers to himself as an obituarist; assistant obituaries editor Peter Keepnews; chief pop music critic Jon Pareles; former deputy obituaries editor Jack Kadden; former obituaries writer Douglas Martin; and Jeff Roth, who for nearly a quarter of a century has overseen the morgue, the vast archives filled with tens of thousands of files of newspaper clippings and photographs as well as nearly two thousand advance obituaries. Gould often asks the writer to read the obituary they have written while she shows film footage and rare photos of the subject: one memorable scene highlights Fox and her poetic obituary of British rower and adventurer John Fairfax. “This was an obit that broke all the rules and proudly announced obits in the twenty-first century can be just as rollicking and swaggering as their subjects,” she says. And the discussion about how to cover sudden, unexpected celebrity deaths — Michael Jackson, Prince, David Foster Wallace, Philip Seymour Hoffman, attempting to get something up on the Times website quickly while battling the six o’clock deadline for the next day’s print edition — is downright exciting. The film primarily works because the writers and editors themselves are intellectual eccentrics who love what they do even as it makes them consider their own mortality. “Literally, I show up in the morning and I say, ‘Who’s dead?’” Weber explains. “And somebody puts a folder on my desk and that’s what I do that day.” Obit. opens April 26 at Lincoln Plaza and Film Forum; Gould will be at Film Forum for Q&As with Weber at the 7:00 screenings on April 27 and 28, with Roth after the 7:00 show on April 29, and with Grimes at the 4:45 show on April 30, in addition to several introductions, while at Lincoln Plaza Fox and producer Caitlin Mae Burke will discuss the film on April 26 and 28, followed by Gould and obituary writer Dan Slotnik on April 29.

ANASTASIA

A young woman (Christy Altomare) searches for her true identity in ANASTASIA (photo by Matthew Murphy)

Broadhurst Theatre
235 West 44th St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through January 7, $69-$189
www.anastasiabroadway.com

A kind of cult — er, rather large fan base — has grown up around Anastasia, Don Bluth’s 1997 animated movie about the fall of the Romanovs in Russia and the possible survival of one of the tsar’s daughters. When I went to see the new musical version, which opened last night at the Broadhurst, the theater was packed with big groups of young girls who were giddy with delight at the prospect of seeing their beloved movie brought to life on the stage; they then proceeded to shriek in unison at their favorite romantic scenes, making the experience feel like The Ed Sullivan Show when the Beatles appeared. The many twentysomething women in the audience were perhaps less giddy than wistful and teary-eyed as they watched the theatricalization of a film that has meant so much to them since they first saw the animated movie back in the late 1990s, when they were the same age as the shrieking girls are now. Thus, the show appears to have a built-in, review-proof audience. They oohed and aahed during the disappointing first act, set in St. Petersburg in 1906-7, 1917, and 1927, which catered to the younger fans at the expense of the story, but the second act, set in 1927 Paris, was enchanting, taking a far more adult approach, a treat for young and old alike.

Gleb Vaganov (Ramin Karimloo) befriends a poor street sweeper (Christy Altomare) in musical version of classic legend (photo by Matthew Murphy)

Anastasia features a book by four-time Tony winner Terrence McNally (Kiss of the Spider Woman, Love! Valour! Compassion!) and music and lyrics by Tony winners Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens, the same trio that turned E. L. Doctorow’s Ragtime into a hit musical in 1998; Flaherty and Ahrens wrote the score for the animated film, and six of those songs, including the Oscar-nominated “Journey to the Past,” are in the Broadway show, along with sixteen new tunes. Neither of the Fox films was completely true to the real story of the Romanovs and Anastasia, and McNally has fiddled with the truth as well, but this is not historical fiction as much as romantic fantasy. The Grand Duchess Anastasia (first played by Nicole Scimeca, then Molly Rushing and Christy Altomare as she grows up) is one of four daughters of Tsar Nicholas II (Constantine Germanacos) and Tsarina Alexandra (Lauren Blackman), who live in luxury in the royal palace, shut off from the real world. Old Russia is coming to an end, but the only one who seems to realize that is the tsar’s mother, the Dowager Empress (Mary Beth Peil), who decides to spend her declining years in Paris. The seven-year-old Anastasia wants to go with her beloved grandmother, who gives her a special music box to remember her by until Anastasia can come visit her. Ten years later, the Romanovs are still awash in elegance and finery when they are attacked during the Bolshevik revolution, as the Communists take control of Russia.

Vlad (John Bolton), the Countess Lily (Caroline O’Connor), and others celebrate their home country at a Paris nightclub in ANASTASIA (photo by Matt Murphy)

Amid postrevolutionary poverty and destitution, rumors swirl that Anastasia might still be alive. Seeking a reward, Dmitry (Derek Klena) and Vlad (John Bolton) try to find a girl they can train to be an impostor, then present to the Dowager Empress. Also on the hunt for Anastasia is Czekist Gleb Vaganov (Ramin Karimloo), a rising star in the Communist Party who wants to make sure all of the Romanovs are dead. He meets and offers help to a street sweeper named Anya (Altomare), but she refuses. Dmitry and Vlad soon believe that Anya, suffering from amnesia, is the right girl for their plan. As they scheme to escape to Paris in 1927 and bring Anya to the Dowager Empress, little memories come back to Anya that hint that she might actually be the real Anastasia. In creating a new telling of the true story, McNally has replaced the evil, villainous Rasputin with the significantly more human, heartthrob-handsome Gleb, while also creating the energetic and fun-loving Countess Lily (Caroline O’Connor), the Dowager Empress’s lady-in-waiting and a potential love interest for Vlad. Choreographer Peggy Hickey offers numerous dances as the action moves from 1906 Russia to 1927 France, including a troika, a waltz, the Charleston, and even ballet, making excellent use of Linda Cho’s costumes, which range from spectacular ball gowns to peasant drab. Meanwhile, Aaron Rhyne’s projections, which often evoke travel, get more creative once the maps go away, enhancing Alexander Dodge’s cleverly functional set. Tony-winning director Darko Tresnjak (A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, The Killer) can’t save the dreary sentimentality of the first act but really opens things up in the vastly more entertaining second act, which begins with “Paris Holds the Key (to Your Heart),” immediately letting us know that things are going to get better. All the while, the shrieking continues, culminating in a rafters-shaking noise at the finale. Spoiler alert: Ten years ago, the real Anastasia’s bones were found, with DNA evidence confirming that she died with the rest of her family in the Bolshevik attack. Of course, McNally, et al. opt for a different ending for the musical, and you’ll be very glad they did.