On January 10th, 2016 I went with my mom to go see Annie, the Broadway musical, at the Lexington Opera House. Annie is a musical that was based off a comic strip written by Harold Gray titled "Little Orphan Annie". The music for this musical was written by Charles Strouse and the Lyrics were written by Martin Charnin. The executive producer for this particular version of the musical was Randall A. Buck.
Annie is a musical about a group of orphans living in a run down orphanage run by the devil herself, Miss Hannigan. However, Oliver Warbucks, the richest man in New York sends his assistant to the orphanage to adopt a child for the Holidays, and who else does the assistant pick than little orphan Annie herself. Annie lives a life of luxury at Daddy Warbucks' house, and she brings so much joy to not only him but the whole house that when the Holidays are over he asks Annie to let him adopt her. Annie is eager to have Daddy Warbucks as her father but she can't help but think of her real parents and the note they left with her at the orphanage. When they dropped Annie off as a baby they gave her half a locket and a note saying they would come back for her in later years. When Daddy Warbucks hears of Annie's distress over this he does everything in his power to find Annie's real parents. He gets the President of the United States to make a national announcement about it and even offers a $50,000 prize. As that money would be tempting to a lot of people several hundreds of fake couples come in claiming Annie as their own. However, none knew about the locket. Until one final couple comes in Christmas morning claiming to know about the locket and the note and they even have her (fake) birth certificate. Annie is almost given up to these people until the assistant realizes she has seen the man before. This couple is busted as being Miss Hannigan's brother and his accomplice trying to get the reward money. In the end Annie is safe and Daddy Warbucks gets to fulfill his wish of adopting her as his own.
This performance was by far the best performance I have ever seen. It lasted about three hours but I never wanted it to end. The actors and actresses were alive and animated while the songs could not have been sung and choreographed any better. Every single little orphan girl was so cute and did so well acting and their voices sounded amazing all together. It was crazy to look at these young girls of 7 or 8 years old and think that they are this talented traveling the country performing at that age. The character that stood out the most to me was definitely Miss Hannigan. She was played by Lynn Andrews who was a bigger lady with big hair and over the top makeup but this woman really knew how to act. She had the crowd in tears from laughter almost every time she spoke. She was loud and projected her voice while constantly moving around. She made it all look so natural and not pre-planned as if she truly was Miss Hannigan. Annie, played by Heidi Gray, could not have been more perfect. This little girl made the audience believe she was Little Orphan Annie. She was extremely lovable and the whole crowd was clinging on to every word she said and feeling every emotion she fed us. She had the perfect red hair for Annie and was overall the perfect actress for the part. Even the dog, Sandy, was very polished and well trained.
The sets were actually so real looking it sort of freaked me out. They always had quick and smooth tarnsitions yet every set was so much different. They obviously had props to assist in the back drops looking 3D, but one of the last scenes in Daddy Warbucks' house had a back drop with fake windows, but they made what was outside of the windows look so real and the room look like it actually went far back. Then, they would have lighting that would just show out the fake windows that gave the illusion of the sun setting. It honestly all looked so real it was insane how they did it. The costumes also fit the characters all very well. The orphans were obviously dressed in their rags head to toe while Oliver Warbucks wore his suits. The whole show was so incredible and of course the music could not have been better. If I were to change anything about this performance it would've been to include the dog, Sandy, a bit more because in the movies Sandy plays a pretty big role, but he wasn't in this performance very much. Obviously that is not a huge factor though. I would rate this performance a 10/10 due to the fact that the back drops and lighting looked so real at times I got confused, the actors and actresses made me feel what they were feeling, and not once in the three hour performance did I want it to end.
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