If you couldn’t score tickets to some of Broadway’s most popular performances, the city is bringing the performance to the borough next week.
An initiative started by the Mayor’s Office for Media and Entertainment (MOME), “Broadway in the Boros” invites stars from the biggest shows to take the stage in the five boroughs. On July 21, big names will grace the makeshift stage at Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island City.
Starting at noon, actors and the orchestra from “Anastasia” and “Natasha, Pierre The Great Comet of 1812” will perform vignettes from each show. The free performance will last about an hour.
Shoba Narayan, Kennedy Caughell and Ashley Peréz Flanagan from “Natasha, Pierre The Great Comet of 1812” will perform while the actors from “Anastasia” are still being finalized, according to a spokesperson for MOME.
Based on the 1997 Disney film, “Anastasia” tells the story of the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia, whose family was killed by the Bolsheviks. Anastasia was the only one to survive the attack and had to fend for herself and in the process forgets about her family and the attack.
In the musical, con men Vlad and Dmitry meet Anastasia as she is traveling to Paris and cook up a scheme to convince the Dowager Empress, Anastasia’s grandmother, that her granddaughter survived, not knowing that the girl they chose is actually the Grand Duchess.
Though Rasputin is not featured in the musical, Gleb Vaganov, a general for the Bolsheviks, is ordered to kill Anastasia once the army finds out who she is. Vaganov’s father was responsible for the death of Anastasia’s family.
“Natasha, Piere The Great Comet of 1812” is based on a 70-page excerpt of the book “War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy. In the musical, which is set in Moscow, a woman named Natasha waits for her fiance Andrey to come home from war and in the meantime falls in love with Prince Anatole. Natasha’s friends must try to convince her not to break off her engagement.
For more information about Broadway in the Boros, visit the website.
