In the spring of 1977, the nation was emerging from one of its darkest hours of modern history. Three political assassinations the decade before, the Vietnam War, the energy crisis, and The Nixon Administration going down in embarrassing flames after the Watergate scandal left a country demoralized with no faith in its leaders. At this point, songwriting team of Martin Charnin and Charles Strouse (Bye Bye Birdie) and librettist Thomas Meehan, were searching for a story for their proposed musical about the 30s era comic strip Little Orphan Annie. All three native New Yorkers drew an immediate connection between the mid-70s morale of most Americans and that of the Great Depression. It was a perfect parallel for Orphan Annie, an eternal optimist, to help their characters weather the storm and come out to a brighter “Tomorrow”. In two and a half short hours, the cheery 11-year-old inspires the other orphans she lives with, gives hope to the residents of a Hooverville, saves a rescue mutt. melts the heart of a jaded billionaire, and even gives President Franklin Delano Roosevelt the fight to come up with his infamous New Deal. Nearly 50 years later, after two subsequent New York revivals, two movies, 8 US national tours alone, and a live TV production, (not to mention a million regional and community productions of varying quality) the question becomes: Do we really need another Annie? After seeing the latest stop of the current national tour at the Hippodrome, the answer is a resounding “Leapin’ lizards, Yes!”
Not only nationally are we at perhaps the lowest point of social morale since the Watergate/ Vietnam era, but the last many revivals and tours have been underwhelming, many misdirected , and left the taste of an overzealous community theatre production with a huge budget. But under the tight, affectionate direction of Jenn Thompson and featuring a breakout performance from local star Hazel Vogel in the title role, this Annie is just the breath of honest, fresh air and hope for a better “Tomorrow” that we need right now.
Young Vogel as Annie is just perfect. Too many former Annies have been too brassy, or too loud, or too precocious, or just flat out irritating—and I’m just talking about the professional stage, movie, and TV ones. Vogel is sweetly earnest without being cloying, legitimately funny without being sassy, spunky without being abrasive, and just downright endearing and charming (in the best interpretations of those adjectives) in her portrayal. Vogel’s voice is equally as perfect for the role—clear and soaring without a typical “kid belt” stretching for high notes that haven’t settled in yet. We’ve even been conditioned to find the quasi-title song of the show annoying as can be (director John Huston even famously discarded it from the score of the 1982 theatrical movie, relegating it to the throw-away spot covering the opening credits). Vogel delivers it exactly as it should be and sounds like a virtual Angel of Hope in doing so. She displays a maturity far beyond her years and not only carries her scenes with the orphans or quiet solo moments like “Tomorrow” or “Maybe”, but she matches comic timing with all the professional adult actors she interacts with, and with an amazing range for one so young. She can be sweetly unaffected by Warbucks’ wealth, yet sweetly affected by his emotional change towards her. She can be a leader with the orphans, an inspiration for the displaced New Yorkers in a Hooverville, charmingly deceptive with a streetcop, and hilariously strong standing up to the antics of nemesis Miss Hannigan. I’d daresay that Vogel even inspired the production team because her costumes and wigs are more flattering and honestly Hazel than the traditional brassy orange mop of curls and cartoon cut dresses most designers force upon their young heroines. Full disclosure, I’ve worked with Hazel on several local productions, first as her wigmaster when she was young Tarzan, and most recently playing her long lost grandfather to her Oliver Twist (whose plight actually parallels Annie’s in many ways), and can confirm she is not only an incredibly gifted actress, but a smart performer with great instincts and a maturity far beyond her years, things you just can’t teach a child. This success couldn’t have happened to a more deserving young star-to-be, and let me just conclude that Hazel Vogel has won Baltimore’s heart. I’m sure that should continue on the rest of the road.
I could stop this review with a stellar recommendation right here on the strength of Vogel alone if the rest of the production and cast weren’t so darned wonderful besides. The musical has undergone several revisions over the last 50 years, and I daresay none of them were improvements. The period references had been dumbed down for “modern” audiences who “don’t know who Don Budge or John Dillinger are” (my response: Read a damn book). One misfire tour even eliminated the Hooverville scene and the scathingly funny song “We’d Like to Thank You, Herbert Hoover” because it was “boring and slowed the show down”. (“Hooverville” is the only scene that grounds the show in the Great Depression that they talk about in so may other places, and let’s face it, the Depression in fact slowed down millions of peoples’ lives, so invalid complaint). The worst changes of all were dealt to the popular, hilarious character of Miss Hannigan. Most perfectly portrayed by comic legend Carol Burnett, her boozy floozy persona had since been tempered to a huge degree, diminishing her drinking (“a bad example for children”), taming her somewhat deserved temper outbursts (“too scary for the young kids ”), and recent versions even changed the script to make her less of a character and more of a standup comedian (to spotlight celebrity names for the perpetual tours) with “jokes” that were far less funny than the original clever script. This tour, under Thompson’s watchful guidance, returns very closely to the superior original script, and that decision alone makes this production the best to come round for decades. And thanks, Dad, for making sure I knew from an early age who John Dillinger was to appreciate it.
While there are no big names in this production, the cast is by far the most well-suited company to take the road since the earliest national tours. Christopher Swan as millionaire—make that billionaire—Oliver Warbucks makes a grand entrance as the stodgy, no-nonsense industrialist who has just returned from a tour of all his diminishing ownings in a foul mood. He makes beautiful transitions even in that first scene as Vogel’s lovable Annie touches his heart and melts his icy exterior. His second act ballad, “Something Was Missing”, is famously known as “the number that brings the show to a dead stop for 4 minutes”. But in Swan’s graceful, experienced hands, his delivery is nothing less that beautiful as he opens his heart to accepting Annie into his life..
Julia Nicole Hunter as his faithful, efficient secretary Grace Farrell is one of the few ever who makes Farrell a strong character on her own, not just an extension of Warbucks, or a plot device, or an unnecessary romantic interest forked into the plot. Hunter is a strong actress with razor sharp comic timing and holds her own in her scenes battling with Hannigan for Annie’s welfare. And more importantly, as composed in the more tradition post Golden Age years of musical theatre, Grace’s songs have generally been in the traditional soprano register, and that abrupt switch in sound from the “character” performers to her standard issue “ingénue” sound has always sounded out of place. Hunter has a soaring range that blends fluidly from chest to head voice with no break, making the score sound more uniform, and Grace Farrell less prim and out of place. Many times the “throwaway” character of the piece, Hunter makes every effort that her Grace blends in and becomes as integral to the story as any of the more colorfully written characters.
Stefanie Londino as the comic villainess of the piece, the evil Miss Hannigan, profits most by the return to the original script, which is good because she always has the hardest job of the show. Carrying the weight of comparisons to the comic legends that have come before her (not only the definitive performance by Carol Burnett, as well as Kathy Bates in a subsequent TV movie and Taraji P. Henson in the recent NBC live version, but also gold standard performances by Dorothy Loudon, Alice Ghostly, Betty Hutton, and June Havoc in the original Broadway run, Nell Carter and Joanne Worley on national tours, and Jane Lynch and Faith Prince in the 2012 revival; Whoopie Goldberg even played the role in this tour during it’s New York stop at Madison Square Garden up until this past weekend) Londino puts her own stamp on it, relishing in the superior comedy allowed her. With a great voice and wonderful comic timing to deliver her set-piece “Little Girls”, she brings the house down exactly where her well-placed moments expect her to. She almost makes one regret that the new revisions haven’t added in the bonus number “Sign” from the movie, as the TV version did for Henson, to give Hannigan an additional moment to shine. (I mean, they incorporated they other movie number “We Got Annie”, so why not? )
Londino is aided in fun comic villainy by her no-good ex-con brother Rooster (Rhett Guter) and his floozy gold-digger girlfriend Lily St. Regis—named after the hotel—(Isabella De Souza Moore) adding great comic relief as well as bump-and-grind shimmy dance moves to their show stopping trio with Londino, “Easy Street”. Also saddled with some pretty huge wingtips and stilettos to fill (from the flawless Bernadette Peters and Tim Curry with Burnett, to Tony winning Alan Cummings and Kristin Chenoweth with Bates, to the thrilling, for stage fans, Megan Hilty and Tituss Burgess with Henson), Moore and Guter swing big and take the number (and its reprise) home. Moore particulary shines while benefiting from a shift back to the original script. After years of trying (unsuccessfully) everything to shake the bimbo stereotype from the role amidst cries of “misogynism”, this loyal adaptation restored her character to all her glorious dumb blonde splendiferousness, and she runs to the limit with it.
The cardinal rule of theatre is never share a stage with kids or animals. And this one prominently features the double liability of both. Fortunately, both the chorus of unruly orphans (Olive Ross-Kline, Aria Valentina Aldea, Nora West, Anna Dillon, Kylie Noelle Patterson, and Eva Lizette Carreon) and stray dog Sandy (Kevin) are total pros and make the show even brighter. They are showcased in the cutest numbers of the show, and they all provide excellent back-up for their stellar lead.
But the production team here also deserves equal credit for restoring the glory to Annie, ironically by moving in the opposite direction. For decades, it seems that the further the creatives drifted from the original in misguided attempts to “contemporize” the show, the tighter the director and designers adhered to the now outdated and tired 1977 original sets and costumes. This smartly conceived revival starts with fresh new sets by Scenic Designer Wilson Chin, who bases his many settings around a ubiquitous arch of the 57th Street Bridge that blends into every scene as backgrounds for the orphanage, to holiday lights in Times Square to the beams and rafters of Warbucks’ old-money mansion. Various projections and other set pieces take us everywhere from the slums of the orphanage and Hooverville to the bright lights of Times Square to an admirable variety of rooms and locations within Warbucks’ estate, making for a highly versatile set design with maximum efficiency. His triumph culminates in a beautifully decorated and lit Christmas ballroom at his mansion for the holiday-inspired finale. After seeing Chin’s concept, anyone who argues that Annie is not a Christmas show despite a Christmas morning finale is just flat-out wrong.
Costume Designer Alejo Vietti brightens things up with flashier new cuts and designs in a more expansive palette of color, especially for the usually drab designs for Grace and Annie. Vogel looks adorable in the brighter palette created for her, and Hunter is a designer’s dream who makes everything come to bigger life when she wears it. Vietti has an especially fun time with the “N.Y.C,” number, creating a vivid Times Square energy with everything from passersby to elegant Rockettes, Radio City Ushers, and a couple of sailors on leave from On the Town. I give him special praise also for the final touch of the show—as Christmas presents for the orphans, Warbucks has bought them all their own version of Annie’s signature red dress in different colors, a vivid raimbow from lavender to sky blue to sunny yellow to peach and a few other well-chosen shades, for their curtain call
Philip S. Rosenberg’s Lighting Design is agreeably bright for the most part to reflect the optimistic point of view Vogel’s heroine dispenses to everyone she meets, and Ken Travis’ Sound Design works very well at the occasionally temperamental Hippodrome.
The Choreography by Patricia Wilcox is, like every other component, a delightful reboot on the expected. She excels from the top with her vision for the classic “It’s a Hard Knock Life” which becomes an exuberant mixture of dance combined with frustration and accented by chore movements (think if The Karate Kid had been instructed to “scrub the floor”, “make the bed” or ‘wring the sponge”), resulting in a smart number to open the show. I also have a great appreciation of her concept of “Easy Street”, which incorporates a selection of bump-and-grind burlesque influences creating a rare three-person show stopper to feature three very polished performers. As a three-time former Rooster Hannigan, I thank you for saluting the song as it should be.
And I can’t say enough about the direction. Many national tours of the show have fallen flat over the years and ironically most of them have been directed by composer Martin Charnin who clearly has no idea of the emotional masterpiece he’s created, failing to find humor where it is inherent, and even holding back potential show-stopping performances from several frustrated Hannigans. Happily, all of the above components I have praised above are superbly coordinated and orchestrated by Director Jenn Thompson, who has thankfully restored all the hope, optimism, fun, and lightness to the show that should have been there all along. She has done the smartest thing a director can do, which is trust her material. Annie has survived in the American psyche for 50 years because of what it is, not what you can turn it into. Thompson deserves full credit for the success of this tour and the joy this cast brings to a piece that audiences have been wanting to love again for years now.
So take a break from the Hard Knock Life we call 2025 and head down to the Hippodrome to enjoy all the brightness and optimism we so desperately need as a country once again. Settle into you seats and prepare to witness a starring debut from an exceptionally talented young local. In the end, I guarantee I Think You’re Gonna Like It Here.
Annie runs 2 hour and 30 minutes with a 15 minute intermission.
Annie runs through January 12, 2025, at the Hippodrome Theatre in the France-Merrick Performing Arts Center at 12 N. Eutaw Street. For tickets call the box office at 410.752.7444. or purchase them online