Leapin’ Lizards! Broadway’s favorite orphan is back. Harris Center for The Arts presents the Tony Award-winning musical Annie, performing six times, February 14–16, with three evening performances at 6:30 p.m. and three matinees at 1:30 p.m. This multi-week tour is produced by Carolyn Rossi Copeland and Crossroads Live North America.
Individual tickets for Annie are on sale now at the Harris Center Box Office or by calling (916) 608-6888. Box office hours are Tuesday–Friday from 12:00 p.m.–5:00 p.m., and one hour before showtime.
Holding onto hope when times are tough can take an awful lot of determination, and sometimes, an awful lot of determination comes in a surprisingly small package. Little Orphan Annie has reminded generations of theatergoers that sunshine is always right around the corner. Now, the best-loved musical of all time is set to return in this new production—just as you remember it and just when we need it most. This celebration of family, optimism, and the American spirit remains the ultimate cure for all the hard knocks life throws your way.
Annie is directed by Jenn Thompson, who at the age of 10 stepped into the role of “Pepper” in the original Broadway production. It is choreographed by Patricia Wilcox (Motown, A Night with Janis Joplin) with orchestrations by Dan DeLange. The tour music supervisor is Matthew Smedal, with Talitha Fehr as music coordinator and Andrew David Sotomayor as music director.
“This show, with its iconic title character, continues to delight generations of theater lovers old and new by joyfully singing directly into the face of great adversity with perseverance, guts, and guile,” said director Jenn Thompson. “For decades, Annie has continued to shine brightly, not only as an appeal to our better angels but also as an example of the thrill of hope, hard-won: promising a better ‘Tomorrow’ not only for Annie herself but for all who need her message now more than ever.”
In the title role of “Annie” is Hazel Vogel, a 12-year-old from Towson, MD, most recently seen in the North American tour of Les Misérables. Returning principal cast includes Stefanie Londino as “Miss Hannigan,” Christopher Swan as “Oliver Warbucks,” Julia Nicole Hunter as “Grace,” and Mark Woodard as “FDR.” Also starring in the tour are Rhett Guter as “Rooster” and Isabella De Souza Moore as “Lily St. Regis.” Kevin, a seven-year-old labradoodle from Georgia, stars as “Sandy.”
The Orphans are Aria Valentina Aldea, Eva Lizette Carreon, Anna Dillon, Kylie Noelle Patterson, Olive Ross-Kline, and Nora West.
The featured ensemble includes Nick Abbott, Anthony DaSilva, Savannah Fisher, Alloria Frayser, Brooke Olivia Gatto, Matt Gibson, Caroline Glazier, Danny Lindgren, Ryan Mulvaney, Melinda Parrett, Drew Tanabe, and Stephanie Wahl.
The design team includes scenic design by Wilson Chin (Pass Over), costume design by Alejo Vietti (Jersey Boys), lighting design by Philip Rosenberg, sound design by Ken Travis (Disney’s Aladdin), hair and wig design by Ashley Rae Callahan, and casting by Paul Hardt Casting, LLC.
The Annie tour stage management team is led by production stage manager Brigham Johnson, stage manager Tara Tolar-Payne, and assistant stage manager Olivia Gordon. The company management team is led by company manager Royce Matthews with assistant company manager Angela Strohbeck.
Hailed by the Chicago Tribune as “one of the best family musicals ever penned,” Annie features the book by Thomas Meehan, music by Charles Strouse, and lyrics by Martin Charnin. All three authors received 1977 Tony Awards for their work.
By permission of Tribune Content Agency, LLC, Annie is based on Harold Gray’s popular comic strip Little Orphan Annie, which premiered in the 1920s in the New York Daily News and became one of the most widely read strips in the 1930s and 1940s. Lyricist-director Martin Charnin discovered the strip in 1970 when he bought a coffee table book called The Life and Hard Times of Little Orphan Annie. After reading it, he fell in love with the story and secured the rights, launching the journey to Broadway.
The original production of Annie premiered on August 10, 1976, at the Goodspeed Opera House and opened on Broadway on April 21, 1977, at the Alvin Theatre. It went on to win the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Musical, seven Drama Desk Awards, the Grammy for Best Cast Show Album, and seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Book (Thomas Meehan), and Best Score (Charles Strouse, Martin Charnin). The Broadway run closed after 2,377 performances.
Annie was revived on Broadway in 1997 and again in 2014. It has been adapted into three films (1982, 1999, 2014) and most recently featured as a live television production on NBC. The show remains one of Broadway’s biggest musical hits, performed in 28 languages and running somewhere around the world for 37 years.
The beloved score includes “Maybe,” “It’s the Hard Knock Life,” “You’re Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile,” “Easy Street,” “I Don’t Need Anything But You,” and the eternal anthem of optimism, “Tomorrow.”
This production of Annie was licensed by Music Theatre International and is produced by Carolyn Rossi Copeland Productions Inc. and Crossroads Live North America
