Annie
Music in which an orphan girl's song of tomorrow, sung in Depression-era New York, passes in turn through the orphanage, the streets, a mansion and the White House, until it becomes one city's anthem of hope.
At a glance 🔭💭
Some coordinates adapted from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0) · Pleiades (CC BY 3.0)
The creators ⏳🌊
- ComposerCharles Strouse
The composer of Bye Bye Birdie, he won his third Tony Award with Annie.
- LyricsMartin Charnin
The producer who conceived the show from a book of the comic strips, he wrote the lyrics and directed as well.
- BookThomas Meehan
He reshaped the original comic strip into a story of Depression-era New York and won the Tony Award for Best Book.
- LeadAndrea McArdle
Took over the role of Annie during the Goodspeed tryout and became the face of the Broadway premiere.
- LeadDorothy Loudon
Won the 1977 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical as Hannigan.
- LeadReid Shelton
Created Warbucks in the original production, singing the story of a gruff billionaire whose heart slowly opens.
I. From comic strip to stage
(Origins) “Annie” grew out of “Little Orphan Annie,” the newspaper comic strip Harold Gray drew from 1924 on. Around Christmas, lyricist and director Martin Charnin bought a collection of the strip as a present for a friend. But leafing through it at home before wrapping it, Charnin was captivated and soon began looking into the rights. Composer Charles Strouse and Thomas Meehan, who wrote short fiction for “The New Yorker,” took a long time to persuade, and in the early 1970s the three became a team. (Composer) Strouse had made a Broadway debut in 1960 with “Bye Bye Birdie” and had also won a Tony for “Applause.” Having once poked fun at 1950s rock 'n' roll onstage, Strouse now went back to the idiom of 1930s popular song. Like “Grease,” which revived the 1950s on Broadway in the same years, “Annie” borrowed the sound of a bygone era to speak to the audience of its own day. (Background) All the original strip really offered was Annie, Warbucks and the dog Sandy, so Meehan built a new story. The setting became New York in the winter of 1933: to Meehan, the gloom of the Depression echoed the mood of the Nixon years in which the book was being written, and Annie was drawn as a 20th-century American cousin of Dickens's orphans. After a 1976 tryout at the Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut, Mike Nichols came aboard as the name presenting the show. It opened at the Alvin Theatre on April 21, 1977, and ran for 2,377 performances.
II. Dawn at the orphanage
(Dawn) The curtain rises on the middle of the night at the municipal orphanage. Soothing the sleepless orphan Molly, eleven-year-old Annie sings, picturing parents not yet met. A note and half a locket, left by the parents who abandoned Annie as a baby, are all the child owns. The song is quiet and plain. Instead of bemoaning grief, it speaks in a child's way of dreaming up one thing and another, and that is what moves the house first. (Labor) When the matron Hannigan bursts in, the children must scrub floors from dawn. The orphans' chorus that follows is a work song in which the slap of mops and clank of buckets become the beat itself. The children grumble, but their spirit never breaks. As the quiet solo of the previous scene collides with this rough chorus, the show reveals Annie's two faces from the start: a child who dreams alone, and a child who leads the pack. (Escape) Annie slips out of the orphanage hidden in a laundry cart. On the street Annie meets a stray dog fleeing a dogcatcher and, to protect it, gives it the name Sandy. Then, calming the frightened dog, Annie sings “Tomorrow.” The optimism a child with nothing offers a single dog becomes the central theme of the work, and the melody returns in many places right to the end.
Annie's first solo, sung in the middle of the night at the orphanage while imagining parents not yet met. It is the theme of longing that returns again and again throughout the show.
- The accompaniment is laid down thinly and the voice set out in front, creating a stillness, as if a child had been left alone on a vast stage.
- The melody comes back several times as a reprise (the same song sung again later in the show), at the end of Act I and in Act II. Each time the same wish takes on a different weight, so it is worth fixing the melody in your ear the first time you hear it.
- It stays within a range a child can sing comfortably, yet the ending stretches long and high. On the original cast album, this is where Andrea McArdle's clear, straight tone shines.
- After the refrain the orphans quietly add harmony, telling us that Annie's wish belongs not to Annie alone but to every child in the orphanage.
A chorus of orphans driven to scrub from dawn — a work song that gets through grueling days on grumbling and grit.
- Onstage, the sounds of mops and buckets serve as the beat. Song and choreography become one, turning the drudgery of work into rhythm.
- The children's high voices sing as one (in unison), almost shouting. It sounds like a deliberate choice to put grit ahead of cuteness.
- In 1998 Jay-Z released a hip-hop track sampling (lifting a snippet of the original recording for use in a new song) this refrain, making it widely known even to a generation that had never seen the musical.
- A short reprise (the same song sung again) follows soon after, showing that the children's spirit is unbroken even once Hannigan has come and gone.
The song Annie sings after escaping the orphanage, calming Sandy, a frightened stray. The central theme of the whole work makes its first appearance here.
- It begins low, almost spoken, and climbs higher phrase by phrase. In the second half a modulation (shifting the tonal center to lift the whole song a step) brightens it further. The music traces exactly how a small comfort grows into conviction.
- Within the show the melody works like a leitmotif (a recurring melody tied to a particular character or idea). It returns as an ever-larger chorus in the Act II White House scene and at the curtain call.
- It began as “Replay,” a song Strouse wrote, lyrics and all, for a short film in 1970. Dressed in Charnin's new lyrics, it took its present form.
- In John Huston's 1982 film version it plays over the opening and end credits. In the White House scene, Aileen Quinn sings it a cappella, without accompaniment.
III. From Hooverville to Fifth Avenue
(Hooverville) Annie reaches a shantytown under a bridge by the river. People called this camp of the homeless Hooverville, after the president. In “We'd Like to Thank You, Herbert Hoover,” the jobless offer a sarcastic thank-you to the ousted president. As the jaunty, march-like cheer rubs against the bitterness of the lyrics, the reality of the era beneath the show's fairy-tale surface comes into view. (Hannigan) Annie is caught by the police and sent back to the orphanage. Hannigan, harried by the children and propped up by drink, bemoans a miserable lot in “Little Girls.” A villain, yes, but the song is the grumbling of a worn-out middle-aged woman, so we laugh even as we dislike the character. Dorothy Loudon, who played the role, won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. (The mansion) Just then Grace, secretary to the billionaire Oliver Warbucks, arrives, come to choose an orphan to spend the two weeks of Christmas at the mansion. Stepping into the Fifth Avenue mansion, Annie cannot hide the wonder of it all, singing “I Think I'm Gonna Like It Here” with the servants. Even Warbucks, who at first finds the child nothing but a nuisance, ends up taking Annie out into the night streets, and in “N.Y.C.” the two sing of the city lights together. Here, for the first time, the gray stage of the orphanage opens wide into light.
The lament of Hannigan, the orphanage matron harried by the children. A character number that wins the villain both laughter and sympathy.
- A sticky, dragging rhythm and mocking wind flourishes mimic Hannigan's tipsy way of talking.
- Dorothy Loudon won the 1977 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for this role. On the original cast album, Loudon's reading, which plays the song as much as sings it, became the benchmark for every Hannigan after.
- At the Goodspeed tryout the Hannigan was judged too harsh, and Loudon was brought in. That is part of why this number carries such a strong comic color.
- In the 1982 film Carol Burnett played Hannigan, with a reading laced with physical comedy. It is worth comparing with the stage version.
It is Warbucks's night out in Manhattan with Annie in tow. The gray world of the orphanage opens for the first time onto the lights of the city.
- Warbucks's gruff opening phrase gradually softens. The melody carries the change in someone who is beginning to open their heart to a child.
- Midway, a would-be star breaks in with a solo passage. The song widens into the story of all the people who have flocked to this city, each carrying a dream.
- Choruses that leap and plunge across a wide range, together with the orchestral arranging (orchestration, the work of deciding which instruments carry which sounds), paint the city's scale in sound. The orchestrations were by Philip J. Lang.
- The 1982 film dropped this number and brought in new songs. To hear the charm of the stage version, you have to turn to the original cast recording.
IV. Schemes in the street
(Wish) Warbucks wants to adopt Annie, but she hesitates, believing her real parents will someday come for her. Warbucks promises to find them and posts a reward across the whole country. When Annie sings “Maybe” again at the end of Act I, the melody is the same but its weight is not. Now the wish carries a price: she may have to leave behind a grown-up who cherishes her. (Con) News of the reward reaches Hannigan's orphanage too. Her con-artist brother Rooster and his girlfriend Lily turn up, and the three sing of striking it rich in “Easy Street.” The swaying rhythm, like a variety show on stage, and the sticky harmonies lay their scheming bare. The song returns in Act II as a reprise (a second singing), signaling that the plan is being put into action. (Radio) Act II opens at a radio station. Host Bert Healy and the Boylan Sisters sing “You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile,” and Annie searches for her parents over the airwaves. Back at the orphanage, the children who had been listening to the radio mimic the song and put on a show of their own. Set side by side, the glittering broadcast and the shabby orphanage imitation leave laughter and tenderness in equal measure.
A trio sung by Hannigan, Rooster and Lily as they hatch a plot to snatch the reward. The villains' giddy scheming rides on a swaying rhythm.
- The shoulder-shrugging rhythm and slantwise, sliding harmonies recall the vaudeville stage of the 1920s–30s (popular variety shows stringing together song, dance and comic patter).
- The very texture, three voices trading lines before merging into harmony, takes the shape of a conspiracy. They don't trust one another, yet in the face of money they speak with one voice.
- It returns in Act II as a short reprise (singing the same song again), signaling that the plan is actually in motion. The audience tenses at the melody alone.
The song radio host Bert Healy and the Boylan Sisters sing on the air. The orphans' imitation of it gives Act II room to breathe.
- The Boylan Sisters' tight three-part harmony is close harmony (chords stacked with the notes packed tightly together), the style of 1930s female vocal groups. It wittily re-creates the sound of radio in that era.
- The sparkling original on the broadcast stage is followed by the orphans' reprise (singing the same song again). The same song turns from a glitzy show into children's play, leaving a tender kind of laughter.
- Playbill singles out this number as a showcase for Peter Gennaro's choreography. It is a signature song remembered for its dancing as much as its singing.
V. Tomorrow at the White House
(The White House) Finding the parents is more than Warbucks can manage alone. He takes Annie to Washington to meet President Franklin Roosevelt. At a gloomy cabinet meeting, Annie begins to sing “Tomorrow.” The cabinet secretaries, hesitant at first, join in one by one, and in the end the president himself chimes in. The song once sung to a dog on a street corner has become the song of the people running the country. In this scene the show's optimism moves beyond personal hope and merges with the great project of its age, the New Deal. (Confession) Back in New York, Warbucks opens his heart for the first time in “Something Was Missing.” It is the song of a man who has all the money and power in the world realizing, because of one small child, that there was an empty space in his life. Rather than a grand declaration, it flows low, like talking to himself, and so its sincerity comes through all the more. (Duet) Grace and the servants celebrate Annie with “Annie,” and Warbucks and Annie sing “I Don't Need Anything But You” together, an old-fashioned stage duet made for tap dancing. As two people so different in age and station fall into step on the same beat, it is clear they have already become a family. But just then, guests after the reward come knocking at the mansion door.
VI. A new start at Christmas
(Hesitation) Facing the people who claim to be her parents, Annie briefly sings a fragment of “Maybe” again. The parents she pictured as in a dream in the very first scene of Act I now stand before her, and the same melody turns into a sound mingling hope and unease. What the truth is, we leave for the audience to discover. We note only that the music does not paint this moment as an elated reunion, but handles it carefully, as if catching its breath. (Resolution) When Christmas morning dawns, the tangled knots come undone. Rather than explain the outcome, the music chooses to gather everyone in one place. Warbucks and Grace, the orphans, the servants, and even Roosevelt all take the stage to sing “A New Deal for Christmas.” Weaving Christmas presents together with the government's new policy, this finale lets one child's story and the nation's recovery end together on the same stage. (Afterglow) At the curtain call, the whole company sings “Tomorrow” once more. Beginning as a solo to soothe a dog and passing through a chorus of cabinet members, it at last becomes the song of the entire theater. Thanks to this design, which grows a single melody to a different size in each scene, the audience goes on humming the tune even as they leave the theater.
The finale that gathers every character in one place. It binds one child's Christmas and the nation's fresh start into a single song.
- Voices scattered across solos and duets gather into a great chorus. It is the moment when the theme of family, built up throughout Act II, is completed in sound.
- Thanks to the wit of weaving a Christmas carol's festive mood together with the name of Roosevelt's policy, the fairy-tale ending is tied firmly to the real history of the Great Depression.
- In the curtain call that follows, the whole company sings “Tomorrow” again as the curtain falls. Listen to the finale and the curtain call back to back, and the show's design becomes clear at a glance.
Lesser-known stories
The melody of “Tomorrow,” which became the show's emblem, existed before “Annie.” Strouse wrote the tune for the 1970 short film “Replay” and set lyrics to it as well. During the years it took “Annie” to reach the stage, Strouse reworked it again with an eye to “Charlie and Algernon,” the musical adaptation of “Flowers for Algernon,” but it was never actually used there. Because the song became so famous, this history survives only in the footnotes of program notes. It all began with a gift that was never delivered. Around Christmas, Charnin bought a collection of comic strips as a present for a friend. The bookstore clerk was too busy to wrap it, so Charnin took it home and, before getting around to wrapping it, read it and fell in love with the work. While Charnin looked into the rights, the friend reportedly never received the book. Records differ on whether it was bought in 1970 or 1971. The role of Sandy the dog has its own story. At the Goodspeed tryout, the creative team felt they needed a real dog but had no budget for an animal and a trainer. William Berloni, then an apprentice at the theater, brought a dog home from the Connecticut Humane Society, and the adoption fee is said to have been $7. That dog went on with the show all the way to the Broadway stage. The sequel to its success did not go smoothly. “Annie 2: Miss Hannigan's Revenge,” by the same three creators, was panned at the Kennedy Center in Washington in 1989, and its move to Broadway fell through. Only “Annie Warbucks,” heavily rewritten with changes such as cutting the role of Hannigan, managed to restore its honor, running more than 200 performances Off-Broadway in 1993.
Term note 📚🔎
Reprise
(Meaning) The English reprise comes from the French reprendre (to take up again, to recover). It means picking up again something that came before. (In film·musical-theater music) Singing a song heard earlier again at another point in the show. Often the lyrics, the tempo or the singer changes. When the same melody returns after the situation has shifted, the audience recalls the first hearing and feels what has changed in between. It is like a sports-day cheer at school: sung with gusto before the match, then sung quietly again after a loss, the same song sounds completely different.
Leitmotif (leading motive)
(Meaning) In the German Leitmotiv, Leit means to lead and Motiv means motive (a short musical fragment). It is a short melody that leads the listener to a particular character or idea. (In film·musical-theater music) A short melody that recurs whenever a particular character, object or idea appears. From the melody alone, the audience recognizes what it points to. In “Annie,” the tune of “Tomorrow” stands for Annie's hope and returns across many scenes. It is like a video game in which the same music plays every time the boss appears, so you know what is happening without even looking at the screen.
Modulation (jeonjo)
(Meaning) Jeonjo (轉調) means to move (轉) the key (調). The key, jo (調), is the system made up of a song's central note and the notes surrounding it. (In film·musical-theater music) A technique of shifting the central note partway through a piece to change the pitch or color of the whole song. Raising the final chorus a step in particular gives a sense of emotion swelling to its peak. That moment at karaoke when, just before the last chorus, the backing track suddenly jumps up a notch and you have to push your voice higher is exactly a modulation. (Elsewhere) In everyday speech people rarely say jobakkum ('key change'), but written as jeonjo (前兆), the word becomes something else entirely: a sign that something is about to happen.
Cast album
(In film·musical-theater music) An album on which the actors who actually performed a musical record the songs from that production. One recorded by the original performers is called an original cast album. The Broadway original cast recording of “Annie” was made on April 25, 1977, four days after opening, and won the Grammy for best musical album the following year. Picture classmates who, after performing at the school drama festival, record the songs they sang onstage just as they were and keep them as a souvenir album. Even those who missed the show can meet it again through the record.
Vaudeville
(Meaning) From the French vaudeville. A widely known theory traces it to satirical songs sung in a valley in Normandy (Vau de Vire). (In film·musical-theater music) The variety show that was popular in America from the late 19th century through the 1930s. It strung together short acts such as songs, dances, comic patter and acrobatics. A shoulder-shrugging rhythm and comic gestures like those of “Easy Street” are called vaudevillian. A school talent show, where songs, magic tricks and comedy bits take the stage one after another, has exactly the structure of vaudeville.
Close harmony
(Meaning) In English, close means near and harmony means harmony. It means chords built with the notes stacked close together. (In film·musical-theater music) A way of building harmony in which the notes sung by several people are stacked tightly, with narrow gaps, so that they ring like a single mass. It was a favorite of the sister vocal groups of the 1930s–40s, and the Boylan Sisters in “Annie” imitate the radio sound of that era. In choir class, when the sopranos and altos sing neighboring notes rather than ones far apart, the sound fuses into one and seems to sparkle; that feeling is close harmony.
A cappella
(Meaning) The Italian a cappella means in the manner of the chapel (cappella). It comes from old church choirs singing with voices alone, without instruments. (In film·musical-theater music) A song sung by voices alone, with no instrumental accompaniment. Without accompaniment, the lyrics and even the breathing are laid bare, and a scene feels far more intimate and candid. In the White House scene of the 1982 film “Annie,” “Tomorrow” is sung this way. Songs sung all together around a campfire without a guitar are a cappella too.
Orchestration (orchestral arrangement)
(In film·musical theater music) The work of deciding which instruments will play the melodies and harmonies a composer has written, and how, and setting them down in an actual orchestral score. On Broadway the composer and the orchestrator are often different people; the orchestrations for “Annie” were by Philip J. Lang. The same melody turns brilliant when the trumpets sing it and warm when the strings take it up. In culinary terms, it is like the way the same ingredients taste different depending on whether you choose to roast, steam or stir-fry them. (Elsewhere) In computing, the work of coordinating many servers and programs so they run together is called orchestration.