PEORIA MAGAZINE May 2023

PLAYING IN PEORIA

FIDDLER BELOW THE FOOTLIGHTS Morton native and violin virtuoso Adam Kujawa is impressing audiences on the Broadway tour of Anastasia

BY LINDA SMITH BROWN

W hen the Broadway touring company of the musical Anastasia came to Peoria for two performances in April, there was one member of the troupe making a return performance at the Peoria Civic Center. Adam Kujawa, a 2015 graduate of Morton High School, was in the show’s orchestra pit, playing violin. The last time he played Peoria’s Civic Center, it was for the All-State Orchestra his senior year of high school, Kujawa said while back home in central Illinois on vacation last month. “It is an incredible show,” the 26-year old Kujawa said of Anastasia , with which he’s been touring since 2021, covering 42 states.

“It tells the story of the beginning of the Russian revolution in the 1920s, with the Bolshevik uprising and the murder of the Romanov family. When that all happened, there was a rumor that the youngest daughter of the family, Anastasia, had escaped. She was still out there, somewhere. Her grandmother offered a big reward. If anybody could find her and prove it was Anastasia, they would be rich. The musical really tells that story. Two con men meet a girl with amnesia and they trick her into believing she could be Anastasia. They travel from Russia to Paris, to basically con the grandma out of this reward money.” The stage production, which has Kujawa performing solo in parts, borrows heavily from the 1956 film

74 MAY 2023 PEORIA MAGAZINE