Starring Celina Smith, Harry Connick Jr, Taraji P. Henson, and Nicole Scherzinger
Directed by Lear deBessonet and Alex Rudzinski
Music by Charles Strouse; Lyrics by Martin Charnin
Live TV musicals made a tentative comeback at the end of 2020 with a live-action version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas (which we'll look at later this month). NBC went with Annie, which given its family-friendly pedigree and Christmas settling, was a perfect fit for their next project. Is the fourth time the charm for the beloved 1977 musical? Let's begin onstage at Bethpage, New York, as a group of girls prepare one to play the ultimate orphan, and find out...
The Story: Annie (Smith) is an orphan in 1933 Manhattan who is determined to find her birth parents. She's constantly escaping from the orphanage where she lives, but the police always find her and bring her back to drunk and abusive Miss Hannigan (Henson). Shortly after one such incident, Grace Farrell (Scherzinger), the secretary of billionaire Oliver Warbucks (Connick Jr), comes to the orphanage looking for a child to live with Warbucks for the holiday. She's taken with Annie's spunk and chooses her.
Warbucks, who wanted a boy, is a bit reluctant at first, but he too eventually warms up to Annie and even tries to adopt her. Annie insists that her parents are still out there, prompting Warbucks to launch a national search to find them. Meanwhile, Miss Hannigan's con-artist brother Rooster (Tituss Burgess) and his girlfriend Lily St. Regis (Megan Hilty) come up with a scheme of their own that'll get their hands on Warbucks' cash.
The Song and Dance: We get a real "new deal" with a show that's tailor-made for a small screen family audience. Smith is a charming and sassy Annie, Henson's an especially wacky Miss Hannigan, and Hilty and Burgess are appropriately oily as the conniving criminal couple. (And Hilty was a last-minute replacement for an ailing Jane Krakowski.) The costumes beautifully convey both the uptown mansion glamor and downtown squalor of Manhattan in the early Depression era.
I also appreciate that this is the first airing of the full stage score, including the chorus numbers "We'd Like to Thank You, Herbert Hoover" and "A New Deal for Christmas" that were dropped from previous screen versions. We even get the two best numbers written for the 1982 film, "Sign!" and "We Got Annie."
Favorite Number: "It's a Hard-Knock Life" gets a terrific run-through early on as the girls make their beds and do silly imitations of Miss Hannigan to start their day. Annie wanders among hobos and fruit sellers displaced by the Depression who bitterly claim "We'd Like to Thank You, Herbert Hoover" for destroying their way of life. Henson gets "Little Girls" even as they drive her crazier. Warbucks shows Annie how wonderful "NYC" is as he and Grace explore the town with her, even as a "star to be" (McKenzie Kurtz) claims she'll soon be famous.
Burgess, Henson, and Hilty really get into "Easy Street," while Scherzinger makes the most of her two big chorus numbers with Warbucks' staff, "I Think I'm Gonna Like It Here" and "We Got Annie." The second version of "Tomorrow" as Annie leads Congress (including real-life polio survivor) Connick Jr. hits the piano for the ballad "Something Was Missing," and the little girls have a ball with their adorable kick line to "You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile."
What I Don't Like: There's a few technical gaffs; the kids are sometimes hard to hear, and it's pretty obvious that the tall New York sets means some audience members can't see the show. Connick sings and plays well (his "Something Was Missing" is lovely), but otherwise lacks the gruff authority needed to put over a mercurial businessman. Everything moved a little too fast, especially in the beginning, skipping past needed information (like how that cop caught Annie) and barely leaving time for the cast to catch their breath, and went on for a little too long. The finale made up for the lack of big action sequences with at least three endings too many, including how Sandy comes back.
The Big Finale: Some critics complained about this playing it too safe, but that might be what people need right now. While I still prefer the 1982 film, this is miles above the 2014 modernized remake and is probably on par with Disney's 1999 TV version (which we'll also see later this month).
Home Media: To my knowledge, this is currently exclusive to NBC's website.
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