Ruth Leon recommends… Annie – 1977
Ruth Leon recommendsAnnie – 1977
My first goddaughter (I have lots but she was the first) is now a grown up professional, a partner in a big firm, but she’s always been an actor manqué. At the age of three she was taken to her first musical. Annie. All the little girls on the stage, singing, looked like somewhere she should be, so she ran down the aisle to join them, with her father in hot but distant pursuit. She did not take kindly to being thwarted in her quest for stardom.
In fairness, Annie has that effect on many little girls and many big girls too. Its score, by Strousse and Charnin, is irresistible as is the cast of adorable moppets, a stray dog, and several excellent adult actors holding it together.
The show opened in 1977 and ran for nearly six years. In that year, Annie was nominated for 10 Tony Awards and won 7, including Best Musical. Dorothy Loudon won for her performance as the dreadful Miss Hannigan and little Andrea McCardle, then aged 12, was nominated for her turn in the title role. She’s still performing at the top level, moppet no longer, shortly to appear at New York’s 54 Below in her solo cabaret.
We can revisit this joyous show and its best songs here with the Tony Award presentation of Annie in 1977.
I once passed Martin Charnin in an office building but was too cowardly to stop and ask him, “I know that you wrote ‘Annie,’ but did she ever write back?”