ANNIE Book by Thomas Meehan, lyrics by Martin Charnin, music by Charles Strouse

De H.trIl1an discusses his produc­ri for Oxted Operatic Soc.iety, , U~V, which marked the (, mmencement of their 50th dnnl\ l'fsJrY year.

THE PLOT

Th£' story, se t in 1933, concerns the orphan Annie, who is trying to find her parents and · 'o lpe the clutches of \lliss Hann igan who runs the \l rphanage w ith a rod of iron . In d ue course, Annie is adopted by 'Daddy' Warbucks the billionaire industrialist, with the aid of no less a person than President Franklin D Roosevelt, but not before Miss Hannigan 's brother and his floozie endeavour to pass themselves off as Annie 's long-lost parents, so as to collect the handsome reward which Warbucks has offered, As in all good family musicals, every­thing ends very happily.

ORPHANS CASTING

Clearly, the main ingredient is Annie herself not to mention the

anced teams, and the nights/mati ­ President needs to look like him as was delightful. A comprehensive other six well-defined orphans, We

nees they would be appearing. far as po,sible and, as he spends his rehearsal list was produced so that felt it essential that to get the most

Their playing ages range from 6 to entire second act appearance in a everybody knew what was going talented girls available the Society 13 and it is worth noting that the wheelchair, practice was essential. to take place and when. The actors should advertise locally and in the playing age of Annie is 11 (men­ There are another thirty or so char­ called really did work hard - andevent some seventy 'kids' turned tioned in the script), whilst others

up on a Sunday afternoon. The acter and these were chosen from attendance was of a very high stan­are described as the 'littlest' (Molly) the ensemble as rehearsals pro­to the 'biggest' (Duffy). The eldest

audition took the form of a work­ dard. gressed. In the end everyone had shop, when everybody had the

girls also acted as team captains,. opportunity to talk, act a simple one line or more!

The kids themselves selected the SCORE & MUSICIANStask, and sing individually whilst Many of the characters are based name of the 'additional' orphan and

still within a small group, After on real American people and one Fully aware that the most commonwe shared some of the lines. more then two hours, punctuated needs to be aware and research this

complaint in a small theatre with by lemonade, the production team aspect. Of the smaller roles, Lt.

no pit is that 'the orchestra was too and three members of the Society ADULT CASTING Ward needs to be played in a kind­

loud', our MD worked with a skele­who worked independently select­ ly old-style cop fashion while the

They went through prescribed ton orchestra of only eight; includ­ed twenty-eight girls for a recall. part of Bert Healy is very much up­

To say thanks you to all the young audition [pieces, including recalls, front. Drake the butler is the only ing himself on piano, 1 violin, 1

hopefuls, each went away with a 'Daddy' Warbucks being a pivotal English person on stage - need I say double bass, 1 trumpet, 1 trom­

baJ of chocolate. The choreograph­ role and although in the comic strip more. The MD, Michael BLUbidge, bone, 3 reeds (doubling) and per­

er, Andrea Green, was most disap­ he was bald-headed, I did not con­ gave him some solo lines to sing. cussion . Happily, the scaling down

pointed that she didn't receive one! sider this totally necessary - a very from a scored 18-piece orchestra The recall duly took place - another short hair-cut sufficed. Miss worked to the benefit of the pro­REHEARSALS excellent two hours - and we fine­ Hannigan called for good comic, duction, and the overall balance tuned down to fifteen, one more 'slightly intoxicated' acting, whilst We rehearsed two nights a week and sound was excellent. than we actually needed. It was Grace Farrell (Warbucks's secre- and some Sunday afternoons. We impossible to discard one bright­ tary)must be calm and serene were blessed with h-vo rehearsal

SCENERYeyed voungster, so we increased throughout. Rooster & Lily St rooms under one roof, so the three the number by one (I\vo teams of Regis, together with Miss H., must of us dovetailed appropriately We The dimensions of the stage at the eight). After some later discussion be able to dance to put over the rehearsed kids from 7-9 pm at least Barn Theatre (24' wide x 16' deep, and practical script work, we vaudeville-style number "Easy one eveniRg a week with Annie with virtu ally no wing space)selected h,·o Annies - their delight Street". I found that the early use of obviously doing that little bit extra. means that the Society always has will long stay in my memory. hats/ coats was most helpful in Even so, we endeavoured to let her to build it own set. Hiring is not an One of the first things we did was establishing through experimenta- go by 9.15 pm. I found that involv- option. The designer and I worked to define the hvo teams (Hannigans tion the correct style for Rooster& ing the parents of all the kids from out the set by moving pieces of card and Warbucks), making sure that lily to adopt as Annie's supposed the outset paid enormous around on a small table whilst sisters were in the same well-bal- parents. The actor playing the dividends, the !\vo-way flow drinking coffee. It worked!

16 JUNE.u.

'ith space restrictions firmly in mind and no flying available, our

ey elements for a free-flowing , how were a door structure on a mlck, with one door UC leading mto the orphanage and another at right angles into the dormitory / office, When reversed, this acted as the Hooverville shack and, when opened out, as the rear of the NBC studio, An elegant staircase was constructed, which together with a large window Uc, hanging 'mas­terpieces' and a practical fireplace, form ed the eloquence of Warbucks ' mansion, We were Qble to call upon the services of a brilliant scenic artist, who reseil rched and pain t<2d the backcloth of a 1933 I New York skyline, the edge of Eas t River beneath 5c th Street Bridge and view of Central Part from the window,

The Society moved in to the theatre three weeks bdore opening night, which helped greil tl y with their familiari sa tion with the set as it got bui lt around them. In the final week, we manilged four run­throughs with the full set on stage, This enabled the crew to practise changing scenes efficiently, and eventually quietly'

LIGHTING

The main consideration is that fre­quently the stage is divided into two distinct halves, and needed to be lit most carefully, with cross fades being very evident in the plot, not to mention the putting on / turning off of lights, as charac­ters crossed from one environment to another. For the kids' numbers "Hard Knock Life" and "Fully Dressed" we cheated the lighting to cover the full front stage to accom­modate the routines" We found the sue of two spots useful, but not essential, and there is a need for a large, fully lit Christmas tree ,

COSTUME & WIGS

It is important to stress the differ­ing living stilndards between the down-and-outs of the American Depression and those who are still affluent, Warbucks's staff we broke down into parlour maids, general maids (different colours), office ~ta ff, footmen, boot boys and a dtauffeur, which helped characteri­-" tions and ease of identification

m the audience point of view,

~ Boyland Sisters wore identical de, highly coiffured wigs and

-'ace wore a blonde wig also ~ ure) to meet script require­ents. Lily was overtly bewigged '>ll.i t her character.

ie needs to be carefully garbed a uthentic' strip cartoon style

ordinary red wig in the early part of the show, changing to the curly wig and red Orphan Annie outfit as she wa lks down the stairs int he final scene. One of the musical's great moments.

PROPS, FURNITURE & SPECIAL EFFECTS

The props lis t is extensive - approx­imately 150 items (some repeated) and this is not listed int he lib . Early atten tion is advis"b le, We use three single iron fm.med beds from a local boarding school for the orphans (top-ta-toe) and put the laundry basket (costume hamper) on wheels for mobility. Eight galvanised buckets were purchJsed ea rly and used for rehears<ll and a period wood ventriloqLList 's dummy was located . I also provid­ed a separate fumiture list, some twenty items of which GIn be dou­bled, An off-stage police car revolving light and fire-g lOW are needed ,

ANIMALS

Sandy, the dog, plays a very impor­tant role in this show - not to men­tion pre-show publicity! As his name indicates, he needs to be of that colour to meet script require­ments, and very fortunately we had the services of a wond erful labrador, owned by a long-serv ing member of the society, Bryon, (his real name) was excellent in every respect, never la te for rehearsals, even making his solo walk across the s tage with aplomb, to his owner and well-earned biscuit in the wings, When casting 'Annie', make sure she is happy with dogs. We also used another dog to bring rea l­ism to the dog-handler scene - and here it helped that the person play­ing that part was the dog's owner. lncidentally, as both dogs were so well groomed, they were made up nightly to add a little authentic scrLLffiness.

SPECIAL RE UIREMENTS

In a show with fourteen scenes, it is important that it flows smoothly with space, so I opted for an 'open-style' production, meaning that some scene changes fitted into the ac tion; e.g. the demolition by police of Hooverville, the 'building' of Warbucks's mansion by using ser­va nts lined across the stage whilst singing to mask the initial change and let them carry appropriate items to elaborate the scene. We drew the blue runners - 10 ft from the front - just three times, playing the end of a musical number in front; e.g, "Tomorrow". This kept the audience's attention markedly, especially with this somewhat

of this needs to be built in at rehearsal.

SOUND

The ']ello' singing commercial (sung and extemporised by our MD, as was the 'Helen Trent' theme) needs to be pre-recorded, together with the three different radio announcements (differing voices advisable) which we slightly extended to cover any unforseen eventualities, A minimum of two period live standing mikes are needed for the studio scene, where the business of getting to and from these needs to be carefull y rehearsed, We had the use of four body mikes - but would have liked

RUNNING TIME

The first act is 1 hour 16 minutes including overture, the second act 56 minutes including curtain time and entr'acte, After the calls we had a full company version of "Fully Dressed".

CONCLUSION

A very happy, fully-integrated compa ny show with plenty of opportunities for everyone to shine. lots of individual research into the period helped everyone to understand the basis of the show. Box office 97%. Forget "don't act with children and ani­

-. most importantly, have an thing and schmaltzy storyline, All eight. mals" - it was great!

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