Anastasia: The Musical Creative

Director

Jeremy Clay

Jeremy Clay is happy once again to be working at the Royal. Over the past 35 years, he has worked on most of the stages across central Arkansas. As a career educator, Jeremy teaches theatre at Bryant, directing a theater company run by his students, and managing the Bryant Fine Arts Center.

Assistant Director

Aubrey Blankenship

Aubree is excited to work on her first ever show at The Royal as the assistant director. Before graduating, Aubree was active on Bryant Theatre Company’s stage as Miss Scarlet in Clue, Connor O’Malley in A Monster Calls, Grandma in The Addams Family and many others. She wants to thank Jeremy Clay and The Royal for this opportunity!

Music Director

Justin McCartney

A Southeastern University Music Performance graduate, Justin serves at Fellowship Bible Church in Little Rock, coaches singers nationwide through his online studio, and teaches adjunct voice at Ouachita Baptist University. Recent credits include co-music directing Jekyll & Hyde and Anastasia with his wife, Heidi.

Music Director

Heidi McCartney

Heidi holds a degree in Music Ed and has over 30 years of experience teaching piano and voice, as well as performing experience across the US and around the world. Music direction credits include The Sound of Music, Cinderella, Bye Bye Birdie, The Wizard of Oz, Jekyll & Hyde, and others. Heidi loves working with singers and helping them experience the joy of music.

Choreographer

Jordyn Purtle

Jordyn is so excited to be back at The Royal! A Musical Theatre Freshman at Ouachita Baptist University, Jordyn was recently in Into the Woods there. She is grateful to spend this time with such a talented cast and crew. Other past roles include Persephone (BTC), Gwendolyn Fairfax (BTC), and Cherry Valance (BTC).

Stage Manager

Mumford Roe

Producer

Carissa A. Lumpkins

Original Creative Team

Terrence McNally (book) was an American playwright, librettist and LGBTQ+ trailblazer, described by the New York Times as “the bard of the American Theater.” One of the few playwrights of his generation to successfully pass from the avant-garde to mainstream acclaim, Terrence redefined American playwriting for six decades and was the recipient of five Tony Awards (two for his plays Love! Valour! Compassion! and Master Class, two for the books to his musicals Kiss of the Spider Woman and Ragtime, and the 2019 Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement). Terrence received many honors throughout his life, including the Dramatists Guild Lifetime Achievement Award (where he was Vice President from 1981 to 2001), the Lucille Lortel Lifetime Achievement Award, and inductions into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1996 and the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2018. His incredible legacy lives on in his plays, musicals and operas that continue to be performed all over the world, as well as in his papers, which are kept and open to the public at the Harry Ransom Center in the University of Texas at Austin.

Lynn Ahrens (lyrics) and Stephen Flaherty (music) have been collaborators since 1983, creating an array of notable Broadway and off-Broadway musicals, including Ragtime, Once On This Island, Seussical, Rocky, My Favorite Year, A Man of No Importance and the animated feature film Anastasia. In 2017, they brought Anastasia to Broadway, making it their third musical collaboration with Terrence McNally. They’ve won the Tony Award, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and the Olivier, and have been nominated for two Academy Awards, two Golden Globes and four Grammys. They serve on the Council for the Dramatists Guild of America and co-founded the DGF Fellows Program for Emerging Writers, which has nurtured new generations of playwrights and musical theatre writers since 2000. In 2014 they received the Oscar Hammerstein Award for Lifetime Achievement, and in 2015 they were inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame.