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Annie (musical)

Annie is a musical with music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Martin Charnin, and a book by Thomas Meehan. It is based on the 1924 comic strip Little Orphan Annie by Harold Gray (which in turn was inspired from the poem Little Orphant Annie by James Whitcomb Riley). The original Broadway production opened in 1977 and ran for nearly six years, setting a record for the Alvin Theatre (now the Neil Simon Theatre).[1] It spawned numerous productions in many countries, as well as national tours, and won seven Tony Awards, including for Best Musical. The musical's songs "Tomorrow" and "It's the Hard Knock Life" are among its most popular musical numbers.

Annie

1976 Goodspeed Opera House
1977 Broadway
1978 West End
1978 North American tour
1978 US tour
1979 US tour
1981 US tour
1983 1st West End revival
1997 1st Broadway revival
1998 2nd West End revival
2000 UK tour
2005 US tour
2006 UK tour
2011 UK tour
2012 2nd Broadway revival
2014 US tour
2015 UK tour
2017 3rd West End revival
2019 UK tour
2022 US tour
2023 UK tour
2023 US tour

Background[edit]

Charnin first approached Meehan to write the book of a musical about Little Orphan Annie in 1972. Meehan researched by rereading prints of the comic strip, but was unable to find any satisfactory material for a musical other than the characters of Annie, Oliver Warbucks, and Sandy, so he decided to write his own story. As Meehan, Charnin and Strouse were all from New York, and given what he saw as the downbeat mood of the then-current Nixon era and Vietnam War, Meehan set his story in New York during the similarly downbeat Great Depression. Meehan saw the character of Annie as a 20th-century American female version of the titular orphan characters created by Charles Dickens in works such as Oliver Twist and David Copperfield, with the mystery of Annie's abandonment and unknown parenthood as consistent with a strand of mysteries in Dickens' tales. Meehan's book was accepted by Charnin and Strouse, but considerable material had to be trimmed out – material which Meehan would later restore for his novelization.[2]

Plot[edit]

Act 1[edit]

In 1933 in New York City, eleven-year-old Annie sleeps in an orphanage with many other girls her age. When six-year-old Molly wakes up from a bad dream, Annie comforts her by singing about her own parents; even though they abandoned her at the orphanage as a baby, she holds on to the hope that they will come back for her ("Maybe"). Annie decides to escape to find her parents, but is caught by Miss Hannigan, the cruel keeper of the orphanage. To punish Annie's behavior, she forces all the girls to clean, and they lament the terrible conditions of the orphanage ("It's the Hard Knock Life"). Later on, Bundles the laundry man comes in to pick up the blankets, allowing Annie to escape in his truck. Miss Hannigan realizes she's gone and chases after the truck. The other orphans cheer her on, but await punishment when Hannigan returns ("Hard Knock Life (Reprise)").


Annie escapes, running into a friendly stray dog. She tells him of better days to come ("Tomorrow"). She fools a police officer into believing he is her dog, named Sandy. Later, Annie and Sandy stumble upon a Hooverville, a shanty town full of formerly well-off people suddenly rendered homeless by the Great Depression. They sarcastically toast the former president ("We'd Like to Thank You, Herbert Hoover"). The shanty town is broken up by the cops, who take Annie back to the orphanage, where Miss Hannigan punishes her with extra chores.


At the orphanage, Miss Hannigan vents her frustration at being surrounded by children ("Little Girls"). Grace Farrell, the assistant to the billionaire Oliver Warbucks, comes to the orphanage, asking for an orphan to spend Christmas at his mansion. Seeing how poorly Miss Hannigan treats Annie, Grace insists on taking her.


At Warbucks's mansion, Grace introduces Annie to the staff and explains that she will have every luxury available ("I Think I'm Gonna Like It Here"). Oliver Warbucks returns, and isn't happy to have Annie in his mansion, having assumed all orphans were boys. Warbucks instructs Grace to take her to a movie while he works, but when he realizes that Annie has never seen New York, he decides to take her there himself, walking the 45 blocks to the Roxy and seeing New York City in all of its glory ("N.Y.C.").


Grace pays Miss Hannigan a visit to tell her that Warbucks wants to officially adopt Annie. Hannigan becomes furiously envious that the orphan she hated so much will suddenly have everything. Her ne'er-do-well brother Rooster and his girlfriend Lily drop by in hopes of a handout. When Miss Hannigan mentions that Annie is going to be adopted by Warbucks, Rooster realizes they can use this situation to their advantage to bring Annie back to Miss Hannigan before it's too late ("Easy Street").


Having noticed a broken locket around Annie's neck, Warbucks buys her a new, more expensive one from Tiffany's. He wonders whether he is ready for such a big change in his life ("Why Should I Change A Thing?"). When he offers Annie the locket and attempts to take off the old one, Annie bursts into tears, as the locket was the only thing left to her by her parents, and she still holds out hope that they will return for her. Warbucks pledges to find her parents no matter what it takes, calling J. Edgar Hoover to get the Federal Bureau of Investigation on the job ("You Won't Be An Orphan For Long").

Act 2[edit]

Annie appears on Bert Healy's radio show ("Maybe (Reprise)"), where Warbucks announces that he is offering $50,000 to the couple who can prove they are her parents. Healy then sings a song with the Boylan Sisters ("You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile"). At the orphanage, the girls are listening to the show. They joyously sing along ("You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile (Reprise)").


A couple claiming to be Annie's parents, Ralph and Shirley Mudge, arrive at the orphanage. In fact, they are Rooster and Lily in disguise. They believe they can pass themselves off as Annie's parents with Hannigan's help, for which she demands half of the money ("Easy Street (Reprise)").


Warbucks brings Annie to Washington, D.C., where she meets President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt and his Cabinet are inspired by her optimism and decide to make it a cornerstone of their administration ("Tomorrow (Cabinet Reprise)").


Once back home, Warbucks tells Annie how much he loves her ("Something Was Missing"). Because all the people claiming to be her parents were frauds, he offers once again to adopt her, and Annie gleefully accepts. The delighted staff get Annie dressed for the formal adoption proceedings, and tell of how her arrival has changed their lives ("Annie"). As Judge Louis Brandeis shows up to begin the adoption proceedings, Warbucks and Annie dance together ("I Don't Need Anything But You").


They are interrupted by Rooster and Lily in disguise. The two present forged documents, as well as the other half of Annie's locket, seemingly confirming their story. Warbucks requests that she be allowed to stay one more night, and they can take her away on Christmas morning. The next morning, Annie wonders if her life with her parents will really be as good as her life with Warbucks could have been ("Maybe (Second Reprise)"). Warbucks receives a surprise visit from Roosevelt and his Secret Service. The FBI has learned that Annie's parents are actually David and Margaret Bennett, who died from a fire a long time ago when Annie was a baby. Mr. and Mrs. "Mudge" show up to take Annie away along with the money, but are quickly revealed to be none other than Rooster and Lily; they are arrested by the Secret Service, along with Miss Hannigan, for child abuse, and all three villains are sent to a psychiatric hospital for their crimes. Annie is officially adopted by Warbucks, who notes that this Christmas is the beginning of a new life for them, for the orphans (all of whom are adopted by wealthy friends of Warbucks), and for the rest of the country, thanks to Roosevelt's New Deal ("A New Deal for Christmas"/"Tomorrow (Second Reprise)").

Annie: , Sarah Jessica Parker, Allison Smith

Shelly Bruce

Miss Hannigan: , Betty Hutton, Ruth Kobart, Marcia Lewis, Dolores Wilson, June Havoc

Alice Ghostley

Grace:

Anne Kerry

Rooster:

Gary Beach

Lily:

Rita Rudner

Stage sequels[edit]

The first attempt at a sequel, Annie 2: Miss Hannigan's Revenge, opened at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., in December 1989 to universally disastrous reviews. Extensive reworking of the script and score proved futile, and the project was abandoned.[50]


In 1993, a second attempt, with a different plot and score, titled Annie Warbucks was developed in a workshop at the Goodspeed Opera House (where the original Annie premiered in 1976) under the direction of Michael P. Price. It subsequently opened at the Off Broadway Variety Arts Theatre, where it ran for 200 performances.

Recordings[edit]

The original Broadway cast recording was made on April 25, 1977, at the Columbia 30th Street Studio in New York City[52][53] and released that year by Columbia Records. A CD containing bonus tracks was released on September 15, 1998, by Sony (ASIN: B00000AG6Z). The 1995 London studio cast recording, featuring the National Symphony Orchestra, stars Sarah French as Annie, Kim Criswell as Miss Hannigan and Ron Raines as Warbucks.


A 30th anniversary cast recording was released in 2008 on Time–Life Records. An all-star cast of former Annie cast members includes Carol Burnett, Sally Struthers, Kathie Lee Gifford, Andrea McArdle, John Schuck, Harve Presnell, Gary Beach and Amanda Balon. The rest of the cast is made up of the members of the 30th Anniversary Tour. This recording is a double CD set and includes the entire show as it is performed now on the first disc. The second disc includes songs from the sequel, Annie 2: Miss Hannigan's Revenge, as well as songs that were cut from or added to the original production. There is also a song from the 1977 Annie Christmas special. The booklet is made up of original drawings by Philo Barnhart, who is the creator of Ariel and Ursula in "The Little Mermaid", and is presented in a comic book style.[54] The album was produced by music producer Robert Sher.

Novelizations[edit]

Thomas Meehan[edit]

In 1980, Macmillan Books published Meehan's novelization of his script for the musical, later reprinted by Puffin Books in 2014. Several of the lyrics from songs from the show were adapted into dialogue and monologue for the novelization. The main lyrics of "Tomorrow" are depicted as being Annie's personal mantra, while "Little Girls" becomes a self-pitying monologue by Miss Hannigan alone in her office moments before Annie is returned to her and then taken away by Grace Farrell. On the other hand "You're Never Fully Dressed Without A Smile" is replaced by the slogan "Smile, darn ya, smile" and others such as "It's the Hard Knock Life" are dispensed with entirely. Meehan used the novel to restore material cut from his original storyline and develop the Annie story into his original concept of what he considered to be a 20th-century female American version of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist.[2]


The novel goes into greater depth regarding the backgrounds of many of the characters, and particularly about hardship at the orphanage, at which brutal beatings and emotional abuse from Miss Hannigan are everyday occurrences. Unlike the high camp portrayal of Miss Hannigan in most productions of the musical, the novelization – in the tradition of Dickens' Oliver Twist – emphatically depicts her as a truly sinister and malevolent villainess – "a skinny hatchet faced woman with short jet-black hair (who) reminded the orphans of a particularly unpleasant looking – and all too real – Halloween witch".[55]


A greater emphasis is placed on the sheer drudgery and illegality of the orphans' sewing labours in the orphanage basement. However, whereas in the musical the orphans are not enrolled in school until the final scene, in the novelization they attend a public school, PS62, where they suffer from snobbery from teachers and harassment from non-orphan pupils, particularly from a spoiled rich girl named Myrtle Vandenmeer. The legal name of Rooster's girlfriend Lily St. Regis is given in the book as being Muriel Jane Gumper.[55][56]


In the novel, Annie spends several months on the run from the orphanage, initially spending the winter as a resident staff in Bixby's Beanery, a low-grade café run by couple Fred and Gert Bixby, before escaping after she finds Sandy. She then spends several months living in Hooverville with Sophie and the Apple Seller (who is named as G. Randall "Randy" Whitworth Jr, a former stockbroker left destitute by the Depression) who, in the novelization, are adult characters and a couple. It is revealed at the end that Randy, Sophie and all the other Hoovervillites were released from prison and given jobs and homes by Warbucks as gratitude for taking care of Annie. Also reappearing at the end of the book is Sandy, previously written out of the book while fleeing police during the raid on the Hooverville, who it transpires was successfully traced by agents from Pinkerton hired by Warbucks.[55][56]

Leonore Fleischer[edit]

A second novelization of Annie, by Leonore Fleischer, was published by Random House in 1982. This was a tie-in with the first film and was adapted directly from the screenplay.[57][58]

In an episode of , House references "little orphan Annie" and "Oliver Twist".

House

An episode of , features a spoof commercial of the "original" cast, now older adults still playing their kid roles, performing the 8,000th performance of Annie.

SCTV

Stephanie Tanner of sings songs from the musical in several episodes.

Full House

On , Liz Lemon is discovered in her office after-hours listening to music on her headset and singing "Maybe".

30 Rock

The stop-motion comedy show parodied Annie in episodes, including "Maurice Was Caught".[76]

Robot Chicken

In "", an episode of Glee, Sarah Jessica Parker as Isabelle Wright with Kurt Hummel and Rachel Berry sing "You're Never Fully Dressed Without A Smile".

Makeover

In the Netflix series , Miranda Sings and her family attempt to mount a backyard production of Annie (with extensive book and score revisions) in the episode "Staring in a Musicall".

Haters Back Off

In the animated show, , the character Alastor references Annie by telling another character “Smile, my dear. You know, you're never fully dressed without a smile.” Furthermore, “You're Never Fully Dressed Without A Smile” and the character Bert Healy were the inspirations for Alastor's character and singing voice.

Hazbin Hotel

Annie's popularity is reflected in its numerous mentions in popular media. References to the show appear in films such as Austin Powers: Goldmember, where Dr. Evil and Mini-Me perform Jay-Z's version of the song 'Hard Knock Life'; and in the 1994 John Waters dark comedy Serial Mom, where a woman is bludgeoned to death with a leg of mutton by the titular serial killer while watching the 1982 film version and singing along. It is parodied in Reefer Madness, where President Franklin D. Roosevelt shows up as the deus ex machina at the end of the satirical musical to tell the assembled crowd, "A little orphan girl once told me that the sun would come out tomorrow. Her adopted father was a powerful billionaire, so I suppressed the urge to laugh in her face, but now, by gum, I think she may have been on to something!"


References in television series include:


The song "Tomorrow" is sung in many media references, including in Roseanne, by Darlene and Becky; by Chandler Bing (Matthew Perry) in Friends, by Reese Witherspoon in Just Like Heaven; by Donkey in the CGI movies Shrek II and Shrek Forever After; and in a commercial for Lowe's Hardware promoting their next-day delivery.


The climax of the animated film Igor involved a giant robot portraying Annie.


Other prominent media references include the following:


6/23/2022 on season 3, episode 4 (Gently Falling Rain) of “The Orville”, the Krill attended a performance of Annie during peace negotiations on Earth. The young alien girl sang “Tomorrow”.

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