Today in 1977: Thomas Meehan, Charles Strouse, and Martin Charnin's Annie celebrated opening night at the Alvin Theatre (now the Neil Simon, currently home to MJ The Musical).
The musical took its inspiration from a Depression-era comic strip about Little Orphan Annie, a plucky red-haired orphan who finds herself in the care of Rockafeller-esque millionaire Oliver Warbucks and constantly gets into various scrapes, often with her trusty dog Sandy. The musical wisely chose to go with a less action-packed plot, telling the story of how Annie comes to meet Warbucks and become his adopted daughter, which also ends up including a search for her real parents. That search is almost thwarted by mean ole Miss Hannigan (who runs the orphanage where Annie was left), her criminal brother, and his dimwitted girlfriend.
The musical ended up being incredibly well timed. We didn't exactly have a Depression on when Annie made its first Broadway bow, but there was a recession. That might have made the musical's 1930s setting seem especially apropos, and its ever-optimistic energy a much appreciated salve to audiences. It's kind of impossible not to smile when you've got seven singing-and-dancing children singing true bangers like composer Strouse and lyricist Charnin's "It's the Hard Knock Life," "You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile" (memorably choreographed by Peter Gennaro), or, in the show's true meteoric breakout hit, "Tomorrow."
A young Andrea McArdle became a star originating the title role, famously taking it over during the show's pre-Broadway tryout at Connecticut's Goodspeed Opera House after the first leading little lady, Kristen Vigard, was dismissed (don't put your kids in show business if you don't want drama!). Also in that original cast were Dorothy Loudon as Miss Hannigan, Reid Shelton as Daddy Warbucks, Sandy Faison as Warbucks' secretary Grace, and, in a featured ensemble role, a then-unknown Laurie Beechman, who would go on to become the first-ever female narrator in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and star on Broadway in Cats, Les Misérables, and more. A young Sarah Jessica Parker later took over as Annie, and later Hannigans included Alice Ghostley, Betty Hutton, and June Havoc.
The show won seven 1977 Tony Awards including Best Musical, and became one of Broadway's biggest hits of the decade, running for nearly six years. Since then, the musical has remained one of the most perennially successful titles in the musical theatre canon, almost always having a national tour out. There have also been two Broadway revivals, in 1997 and 2013. It's also received multiple screen adaptations, with a feature film first in 1982 with Carol Burnett, Tim Curry, and Bernadette Peters; a 1999 TV re-make featuring Audra McDonald, Victor Garber, Kathy Bates, Kristin Chenoweth, and Alan Cumming; a 2014 modernized version starring Quvenzhané Wallis, Jamie Foxx, Rose Byrne, and Cameron Diaz; and a 2021 live TV version starring Taraji P. Henson, Harry Connick Jr., Nicole Scherzinger, Tituss Burgess, and Megan Hilty.
It's also become one of the rare Broadway properties to get sequels—yes, multiple! This rarity began in 1989, when the original writing team debuted Annie 2: Miss Hannigan's Revenge with a pre-Broadway try-out at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Following negative reviews, the Broadway run was called off. But the writers tried again with a new sequel titled Annie Warbucks in 1993, which ultimately did get an Off-Broadway run. There's even a film sequel, Annie: A Royal Adventure!, which released on TV in 1995.
And that's still not the end of the Annie stage franchise. The title was also amongst the first titles chosen by theatrical licensor Music Theatre International for their Broadway JR. series, which adapts full-length musicals into hour-long versions tailor-made for young performers. That version of the show has gone on to become a favorite at schools, youth theatre groups, churches, and summer camps.
Take a look back at the original Broadway production of Annie in the gallery below.
Learn what other theatrical events occurred April 21 by visiting the Playbill Vault.
Sandy and Andrea McArdle in Annie
