**** Recommended The Madison Square Garden Production of Annie playing at the Chicago Theatre is an absolute delight. The success of this production rests squarely on the shoulders of twelve-year-old Hazel Vogel, who is onstage virtually the entire play – a daunting prospect for many adults – but this girl is definitely up to the task! Kevin, the dog who plays Sandy, is darling and very well trained. Annie is a perfect choice to introduce young people to live theater. 4 Spotlights
The show opens in the New York Municipal Orphanage with a blockbuster combo – Annie singing Maybe followed by all the orphans singing It’s the Hard Luck Life. The orphans are Molly (Olive Ross-Kline), Pepper (Aria Valentina Aldea), Duffy (Nora West), July (Anna Dillon), Tessie (Kylie Noelle Patterson) and Kate (Eva Lizette Carreon).
When Miss Halloran (Stephanie Londino) catches them having fun, she berates them, then assigns work. As soon as she leaves the room, they reprise It’s the Hard Luck Life.
Annie was left on the orphanage steps, her parents left half a locket and a piece of paper with her name. She’s bound and determined to find a way to escape and find them. As the orphans are stripping beds, Annie hides in a laundry bag and escapes. Miss Hannigan, who drinks too much, hates Little Girls. Just as she’s relaxing with her favorite radio program, she finds out Annie is gone.
After Annie escaped, she adopts a dog she calls Sandy (Kevin), and eventually ends up in Hooverville, a shanty town under the 59th Street Bridge. Just when she’s asking questions, the police raid Hooverville and return her to the orphanage.
As Miss Hannigan is thinking up a diabolical punishment for Annie, a surprise visitor, Grace Farrell (Julia Nicole Hunter), personal assistant to Oliver Warbucks the billionaire, requests an orphan for the holidays – a girl with red hair.
At the Warbucks mansion, the entire staff falls in love with Annie. At Grace’s urging, Oliver Warbucks (Christopher Swan) takes Annie everywhere with him, even to the White House where she meets President Roosevelt (Mark Woodard).
When Warbucks launches a search for Annie’s parents, Miss Hannigan’s brother Rooster (Rhett Guter), a despicable man, and his girlfriend, Lily St. Regis (Isabella De Souza Moore), cook up a scheme claiming to be Annie’s parents in order to get the $50,000 reward. When Miss Hannigan finds out, she insists on sharing the reward. Their scheme is eventually thwarted by FDR and the FBI.
Wilson Chin’s set relies on projections of the New York skyline, an actual Hooverville, windows of the Warbucks’ estate, the White House at the rear. Set pieces include doorways, arches, columns and stairways that drop down or roll onto the stage.
The versatile Annie ensemble members play everyone from the Warbucks staff to the denizens of Hooverville to the people on the streets of New York. They are Stephen Cerf, Anthony DaSilva, Savannah Fisher, Alloria Frayser, Brooke Olivia Gatto, Caroline Glazier, Ryan Mulvaney, Joel Newsome, Melinda Parrett, Lawrence E. Street, Drew Tanabe and Stephanie Wahl.
Annie is based on the Harold Gray’s 1924 comic strip, Little Orphan Annie, which was inspired by the 1903 poem Little Orphan Annie by James Whitcomb Riley. Annie opened on Broadway in 1977. That production, written by Thomas Meehan with music by Charles Strouse and lyrics by Martin Charnin, won seven Tony Awards.
This production is directed by Jenn Thompson, who played Pepper in the original show, with choreography by Patricia Wilcox and orchestrations by Dan DeLange.
Annie runs through December 1st at the Chicago Theatre, 150 N. State Street, Chicago. The entire production will be moving on to New York where it will open December 3rd in Madison Square Garden with Whoopi Goldberg in the role of Miss Hannigan.
Running time is approximately two hours, 30 minutes, with an intermission. Performances are Tuesdays through Fridays at 7:00 pm, Saturdays at 2:00 & 7:00 pm, Sundays at 11 am & 4:00 pm. There is no performance on November 28th, Thanksgiving Day. Tickets start at $39 at the box office, $54.50 at www.chicagotheatre.com/ANNIE