Annie Live

 I just love when the TV networks do live broadcasts of Broadway musicals.

This time around, NBC did a production of Annie. 

In my house, it’s known as “the sacred Annie”.  The show opened on Broadway in 1977, and my younger sisters imagined themselves in the title role.  When the show was revived on Broadway in 1997, Becca auditioned to be one of the orphans …she made it through several rounds of auditions but ultimately wasn’t cast in the show.

(Yes, Becca had a very brief acting career…)

So I am more than familiar with the script, the score, the show.

I liked this production.  They pretty much stuck to the Broadway script, except they dropped two songs and added two songs from the movie.  There were a few other changes, too, but nothing major. The young lady is the title role was wonderful, all the little girls were cute. 

I loved how the radio station in Act 2 became “WNBC in NYC”.  With an era-appropriate microphone.

The dialogue with FDR and his Cabinet about infrastructure and putting people back to work … yes, it resonates.  Notice, though, that FDR called on Warbucks, a billionaire Republican, reaching across party lines.  

Interesting little change in the script.  Instead of taking Annie to a movie, Daddy Warbucks takes her to  Broadway show — giving Harry Connick as Warbucks a chance to say how happy he is that Broadway is coming back in these troubled times, which resonated with the studio audience.

I don’t know what commercials the rest of the country saw, but those of in the NYC area saw commercials for every musical currently playing on Broadway.

And did you catch the Wendy’s commercial starring the lovely Boylan sisters?

So yes, the theater nerd liked the show.

But I’m crying … because the show brings up memories of different times in my life …so I’m wallowing in nostalgia tonight…