Annie – Review of 2025 Stratford Festival Production

It’s a hit.
Those were the magic words that producers and artists from New York to New Zealand want to hear after the opening of every new production. The musical Annie opened on Broadway in 1977 so a production by the Stratford Festival may not be quite the same. I say it is and opening night in Stratford qualifies the description: IT’S A HIT.
Credit does go to Thomas Meehan (book), Charles Strouse (music) and Martin Charnin (lyrics) but for the Stratford production we give top marks to director and choreographer Donna Feore. She controls the acting, singing and dancing brilliantly and overwhelms us with masterly performances. She has the audience in the palm of her hand and can command a standing ovation in mid-performance. Why wait for the curtain calls.
She has the ideal plot on her side. Annie is based on Little Orphan Annie, a comic strip from the 1920’s about a spunky, optimistic and lovable orphan and a stray dog. She is placed in a Dickensian orphanage in New York run by a sadistic Miss Hannigan (Laura Condlin). Oliver Warbucks, a billionaire, takes Annie to his mansion for Christmas and offers $50,000 to her parents if they can be located. It is post-depression 1933 and that is a fortune.
It has a happy ending, of course, but we have a couple of hours of song, dance, humour and pathos to get there. And there won’t be a dry eye in the house.
The children in the orphanage sing “Maybe” and “Hard Knock Life” but there is the optimistic anthem of the show “Tomorrow.” They dance, show decency, especially Annie, and put up with Miss Hannigan’s nastiness. Annie escapes and finds a dog (favorite with the audience) but she is caught and returned to the orphanage.
Miss Farrell (Jennifer Rider-Shaw), a smart, well-dressed lady, comes to the orphanage and wants to take a child to Mr. Warbucks, her employer’s house, for Christmas. Feore does not miss any opportunity for athletic and superb dance numbers. The servants, the children, the guests everyone gets to dance. And the routines are outstanding. The creators of Annie maintained the old-style musical type with melodies, a classic plotline, good humor and of course a child, a dog and an ending that’s made in heaven.
Chameroy is a billionaire with a heart who wants to introduce Annie to Babe Ruth until she asks, “who is he?” and she mistakes his fancy cars for paintings. Condlin is the classic and hilarious child abuser, drunkard and would-be swindler as Miss Hannigan. Her brother Rooster Hannigan (Mark Uhre) and his partner Lily (Amanda Lundgren) are hilarious as Annie’s would-be parents who go to claim the fifty thousand and Annie as their daughter. We also see President Franklin Delano Roosvelt (Stephen Patterson) and his cabinet who get a lesson in optimism from Annie.
The musical has a huge cast from the orphans to the streets of New York, to the well-staffed mansion, to the White House, to the residents of Hooverville, to the Radio Station where a full program is in session and they try to announce the nation-wide search for Annie’s parents. (They are dead).
The set by Michael Gianfrancesco is designed to be suitable and easily manageable and it works perfectly. It is a musical and a production where everything works to delight the audience and inspire tumultuous applause and, of course, a standing ovation.
Annie by Thomas Meehan (book), Charles Strouse (music) and Martin Charnin (lyrics), directed by Donna Feore continues until November 2, 2025, at the Festival Theatre; Stratford, Ontario. www.stratfordfestival.ca

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