Annie is a Broadway musical based upon the popular Harold Gray comic strip Little Orphan Annie, with music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Martin Charnin, and book by Thomas Meehan.
The original Broadway production opened in 1977 and ran for nearly six years, setting a record for the Alvin Theatre (now the Neil Simon Theatre).
It spawned numerous productions in many countries, as well as national tours, and won seven Tony Awards, including the Tony Award for Best Musical. The musical's songs Tomorrow and It's the Hard Knock Life are among its most popular musical numbers.
Charnin first approached Meehan to write the book of a musical about Little Orphan Annie in 1972. Meehan researched by re-reading prints of the comic strip, but was unable to find any satisfactory material for a musical other than the characters of Annie, Oliver Warbucks and Sandy, so decided to write his own story.
As all three of Meehan, Charnin and Strouse were from New York and given what he saw as the downbeat mood of the then-current Nixon era and the Vietnam War, Meehan set his story in New York during the similarly downbeat Great Depression.
Meehan saw the character of Annie as a 20th Century American female version of the titular orphan characters created by Charles Dickens in works such as Oliver Twist and David Copperfield with the mystery of Annie's abandonment and unknown parenthood as consistent with a strand of mysteries in Dickens' tales.
Meehan's book was accepted by Charnin and Strouse, but considerable material had to be trimmed out -material which Meehan would later restore for his novelization.
More information: Annie The Musical
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. Danielle Brisebois was one of the orphans. It was nominated for eleven Tony Awards and won seven, including the Best Musical, Best Score, and Best Book.
Replacements in the title role on Broadway included then-child actors Shelley Bruce, Sarah Jessica Parker, Allison Smith and Alyson Kirk. Replacements in the role of Miss Hannigan included Alice Ghostley, Dolores Wilson, Betty Hutton, Marcia Lewis, and June Havoc. Ann Ungar understudied and played for Dorothy Loudon in the role of Miss Hannigan. She also understudied Alice Ghostley and Dolores Wilson.
The show closed on January 2, 1983, after a total of 2,377 performances, setting a record for the longest running show at the Alvin Theatre, now the Neil Simon Theatre, until it was surpassed by Hairspray in 2009.
More information: Broadway Musical Home
My two favorite musicals growing up in were 'Annie' and 'Sweeney Todd,'
and my best friend and I would sing all the songs when I was a kid.
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