Leapin’ Lizards! Blumenthal Performing Arts has announced that an all-new tour of the iconic Tony Award®-winning musical Annie will play Belk Theater from May 30th to June 4th. Tickets are on sale now! The multi-week tour is produced by TROIKA Entertainment, LLC.
Holding onto hope when times are tough can take an awful lot of determination, and sometimes, an awful lot of determination comes in a surprisingly small package. Little Orphan Annie has reminded generations of theatergoers that sunshine is always right around the corner, and now the best-loved musical of all time is set to return in this new production – just as you remember it and just when we need it most. This celebration of family, optimism and the American spirit remains the ultimate cure for all the hard knocks life throws your way.
Hailed by the Chicago Tribune as, “one of the best family musicals ever penned!” Annie features a book by Thomas Meehan, music by Charles Strouse and lyrics by Martin Charnin. All three authors received 1977 Tony Awards® for their work.
“This show, with its iconic title character, continues to delight generations of theatre-lovers old and new by joyfully singing directly into the face of great adversity with perseverance, guts and guile,” says director Jenn Thompson. “For decades, Annie has continued to shine brightly, not only as an appeal to our better angels, but also as an example of the thrill of hope, hard-won: promising a better ‘Tomorrow’ not only for Annie herself, but for all who need her message now more than ever.”
Annie is directed by Jenn Thompson, who played the role of “Pepper” in the Original Broadway production at age 10, choreographed by Patricia Wilcox (Motown, A Night with Janis Joplin), with orchestrations by Dan DeLange. T
In the title role of Annie is Ellie Pulsifer, a 12-year-old actress from South Florida, making her tour debut. The lovable mutt “Sandy” is once again trained by Tony Award®Honoree William Berloni (Annie, A Christmas Story, Legally Blonde).
By permission of Tribune Content Agency, LLC, Annie based on Harold Gray’s popular comic strip “Little Orphan Annie” which premiered in the 1920s in the New York Daily News and became one of the most widely read strips in the 30s and 40s. Lyricist Martin Charnin bought a coffee table book called “The Life and Hard Times of Little Orphan Annie” as a Christmas gift for a friend in 1970. The clerk at the bookstore was too busy to wrap the book, so Charnin took the book home to wrap it. Instead, he read it and fell in love with the strip and set out to secure the rights. The friend never got the book.
The original production of Annie had its world premiere on Aug 10, 1976 at the Goodspeed Opera House and opened on Broadway on April 21, 1977 at the Alvin Theatre. It went on to win the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Musical, seven Drama Desk Awards including Best Musical, the Grammy for Best Cast Show Album and seven Tony Awards including Best Musical, Best Book and Best Score. It closed on Broadway after playing 2,377 performances. AnnieAwas revived on Broadway in 1997 and again in 2014. It has been made into a film three times (1982, 1999, 2014) and was most recently featured as a live television production on NBC. The show remains one of the biggest Broadway musical hits ever; it has been performed in 28 languages and has been running somewhere around the world for 45 years.
The beloved score for Annie includes; “Maybe,” “It’s the Hard Knock Life,” “You’re Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile,” “Easy Street,” “I Don’t Need Anything But You” and the eternal anthem of optimism, “Tomorrow.”
Connect with Annie on tour at the website, or on social media at Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
