A Night on Broadway Celebrates Over Thirty Years of America’s Favorite Family Musical!

Everyone’s favorite red headed orphan and eternal optimist, Annie, is celebrating her thirty second birthday and you’re invited to join in on the festivities as over thirty local children celebrate Little Orphan Annie and her big Broadway musical!

Annie made its World premiere on August 10, 1976 at the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam, Connecticut.  Kristin Vigard was the first actress to play the title role.  The original Broadway production opened at the Alvin Theatre on April 21, 1977 and starred Andrea McArdle as Annie, Reid Shelton as Daddy Warbucks, Dorothy Loudon as Miss Hannigan, and Sandy Faison as Grace Farrell.  It was nominated for eleven Tony Awards and won seven, including Best Musical, Best Score, and Best Book.  Replacements for McArdle in the lead role included then-child actors Shelley Bruce, Sarah Jessica Parker, Allison Smith, and Alyson Kirk.  The show closed on January 2, 1983 and ran for a total of 2,377 performances.

In 1978, the London cast of Annie opened at the Victoria Palace Theatre, in the West End of London, on May 3.  Miss Hannigan was played by Sheila Hancock, and Daddy Warbucks was played by Stratford Johns.   Annie closed on November 28, 1981 after 1,485 performances, and immediately transferred to the Bristol Hippodrome for a special Christmas season before touring Britain.

During the Broadway run of Annie, there were four touring companies that were launched from the original production team to bring the show to major U.S. cities from 1978 to 1983.  In 2005, a 30th anniversary traveling production of Annie embarked on a multi-city national tour and due to its popularity, was extended into 2007.   This production was directed by Martin Charnin and stared Conrad John Schuck as Daddy Warbucks, Alene Robertson as Miss Hannigan, and Marissa O'Donnell as Annie.

The production is also the first of any Annie national tour to produce a special cast recording celebrating the 30th Anniversary with an all star cast including Carol Burnett, Sally Struthers, Kathie Lee Gifford, Andrea McArdle, Conrad John Schuck, Gary Beach and Marissa O'Donnell .  The rest of the cast is made up of members of the 30th Anniversary Tour.  This will be a double disc CD set and will include the songs we know and love on the first disk along with previously unrecorded material. The second disc includes cut songs from the sequel to Annie -- Annie 2: Miss Hannigan's Revenge which eventually became known as Annie Warbucks. Disc two will also feature three songs that were cut from or added to the original production including a new song for Warbucks entitled “Why Should I Change a Thing?”.

Annie is so popular she has been the subject of many pop culture references including The long-running Broadway parody production of Forbidden Broadway which took up "Tomorrow" as sung by an adult Annie pleading for a sequel to the original musical.  Other prominent media references include Rapper Jay-Z’s heavy use of samples from the Broadway cast album version of "It's the Hard-Knock Life" in his single "It's the Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)".   In turn, Jay-Z's take was also parodied by Sudden Death with their song "Star Trek Life" from their album Die Laughing and was even featured in the third Austin Powers film franchise which featured Doctor Evil using the Jay-Z song to distract the guards as he escapes from prison.

And now the little orphan is thirty two years old and she’s hardly aged a day!  Join us for a celebration unlike any other and salute Annie and her favorite Broadway musicals with A Night on Broadway!