In my latest blog post I will be talking about one of my favourite stage and film musicals Annie.
Annie tells the story of an orphan girl living at Miss Hannigan’s Home for Orphans in New York City longing to find her parents until she was invited to stay at Oliver Warbucks home for the holidays, but Miss Hannigan plans to get her back with help from her brother Rooster and his girlfriend Lily.
The show has a book by Thomas Meehan, music by Charles Strouse and lyrics by Martin Charnin with some of the great songs in musical theatre like It’s The Hard-Knock Life, Easy Street and Tomorrow to name just a few.
Here are some facts on the stage productions:
The original production opened on Broadway in 1977 with Andrea McArdle as Annie and ran for nearly six years and since then it has spawned numerous productions in many countries, as well as national tours, and won seven Tony Awards, including for Best Musical.
It then opened in London at the Victoria Palace Theatre in 1978 with Andrea reprising her role of Annie and Sheila Hancock as Miss Hannigan and returned to that same theatre 20 years later in 1998 with Lesley Joseph as Hannigan.
There was a Broadway revival in 2012 with Anthony Warlow as Oliver Warbucks and Glee’s Jane Lynch as Miss Hannigan and there was even a Hollywood Bowl production in 2018 with David Alan Grier as Warbucks, Lea Salonga as Grace Farrell and Roger Bart as Rooster Hannigan.
It returned to London in 2017 at the Piccadilly Theatre with Miranda Hart and Strictly’s Craig Revel Horwood as Miss Hannigan before it went out on a UK Tour which I saw at the Hull New Theatre in April 2019 with Anita Dobson as Hannigan followed by another UK Tour in 2023 four years later with the late great Paul O’Grady (who passed away during the tour’s run), Jodie Prenger and Craig as Hannigan.
And now we move onto the film versions:
The original film of the musical was released by Columbia Pictures in 1982, it had Albert Finney as Oliver Warbucks, Carol Burnett as Miss Hannigan, Tim Currey as Rooster Hannigan, Bernadette Peters as Lily and Ailleen Quinn as Annie and featured the songs Let’s Go to The Movies, We’ve Got Annie and Sign written especially for the film.
There was a non-musical film sequel made for television in 1995 with Ashley Johnson as Annie and George Hearn as Oliver Warbucks with Joan Collins and Ian McDiarmid in the cast and includes the song Tomorrow from the 1982 film.
The musical was then adapted into a television film in 1999 for The Wonderful World of Disney (available now on DVD and streaming on Disney+) under the direction of Rob Marshall with Kathy Bates, Alan Cumming, Victor Garber, Audra McDonald, Kristen Chenoweth and Alicia Morton in the cast.
It was then updated for the 21st century in 2014 by Columbia Pictures with Jamie Foxx as Will Stacks (an update of Warbucks), Cameron Diaz as Hannigan and Quvenzhané Wallis as Annie.
After Covid-19 and the pandemic, the musical was broadcast live on US TV on NBC in December 2021 (shown on Sky Arts in the UK in December 2022 one year later) with Taraji P. Henson as Miss Hannigan, Harry Connick Jr. as Oliver Warbucks and Nicole Scherzinger as Grace Farrell in the cast.
Annie is the next production from CAODS at the New Theatre Royal in Lincoln with a Launch Night on Friday 14th March and the show will run from Friday 31st October to Saturday 8th November with tickets on sale now for the production’s run and did you know that this will mark the show’s return to Lincoln as it originally played at the Theatre Royal in 2001 for one month as part of it’s UK Tour and then returned there in September 2011 with Su Pollard as Miss Hannigan.
So, make sure to book your tickets now for what promises to be another great production from CAODS, and an unforgettable theatre experience you’ll never forget.
BUY YOUR TICKETS TODAY!
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