It was announced that Anastasia was going to be the musical performed by GP early last year, but it was recently switched to Newsies.

Many theatre club members were confused and a bit frustrated at first when they heard the news, not understanding the reason the show was changed.

“It’s really very simple,” Mr. Jordan, theatre club advisor said. “The beautiful production of Anastasia has strong visual scenes of palaces, flying ghosts, and moving railway scenery, etc. To do this right, we must have these visuals. In order for this to happen, our club would have needed rent (very expensive!) or purchase a high-tech projector (even more expensive). The club didn’t have enough budget for this. We will hopefully be in a better position to produce it for the 2025 musical. Newsies is an excellent musical for us in that we have strong dancers, and it has beautiful music and strong messages.”

Many students, such as Landon Thompson, were upset when it was announced that the show would be changing, but now are very excited to participate in Newsies. “While at first I was a tad disappointed because Anastasia is such a beautiful show,” Thompson says, “I am now really excited for Newsies! It has a ton of fun songs and dances, so I think it will be a super fun experience to have with my friends!”

Another student, Sage Touchette, has similar feelings as Thompson regarding the switch of the musical. “I’m kind of sad because I was really excited to do waltzing in the music and Anastasia has really really beautiful music and I think Newsies has all their songs sound somewhat similar, but I think that newsies is also going to be really fun because it’s very dance heavy and dancing is a lot of fun.” Touchette said.

Although the 2024 musical isn’t going to be Anastasia, as Mr. Jordan said, “we will hopefully be in a better position to produce it for the 2025 musical.”