Annie - 30th Anniversary Cast Recording

If there ever is a Ph. D. program in Musical Theater Studies (and why shouldn't there be?), there'll be as many doctoral theses on Thomas Meehan, Charles Strouse, and Martin Charnin's Annie as there are on Hamlet in nonmusical theater and English Lit. studies. The original 1977 Annie ran on Broadway by all accounts for 2,377 performances (although Charnin, in the new recording's booklet, has 2,327, which may be a typo), and remains one of the longest-running musicals of all time.

For the fullest account of the five years of Sisyphean labor that went into getting the show onto the stage—first at the Kennedy Center, then on Broadway—you should read Strouse's recent memoir, Put on a Happy Face; the stock market could hardly have such ups and downs, or the Marines have negotiated steeper hills and wilder dales. In the memoir you will also find Harold Prince's advice to Strouse: "Write a children's show that kids can bring their parents to, and you may be okay. But write a grown-up show that parents can bring their children to, and you've got a hit." The counsel was followed; it also helped that Mike Nichols was the hands-on producer.

Little Orphan Annie, Harold Gray's Depression-era comic strip, whose musicalization was Charnin's much-questioned idea, was strongly political and gray enough. The musical handled politics more lightly and added lots of color. This spoke consolingly to the '70s, what with Nixon and Watergate, and does so again today, what with Bush and Iraq. But there are also eternal, basic values aplenty.

[IMG:R]Strouse must be the only composer of musicals whose range extends from study with Nadia Boulanger (who taught more famous classical and opera composers than any teacher in history) to successful jingle-writing for some major commercials. It may be debated whether—a prerequisite for great musicals—every song at least equals or, indeed, surpasses its antecedent, but what cannot be denied is that the songs are wonderfully varied, highly original within traditional perimeters, and uniformly pleasurable.

Thomas Meehan's book controlled pathos with pluck and humor in the seven orphans and the orphaned mutt, Sandy. And however low and cunning the villains were, they remained as funny as sinister. Best of all, the good guys were not saccharine. The show was so flawless and complete that it made successful sequels impossible.

For there were two major attempts at sequels. There was Annie 2 (aka Miss Hannigan's Revenge), which proved too brutal for children, and was rewritten as Annie Warbucks with a different score and different but not enormously successful plotline. As for film versions of the original musical, the 1982 big-screen adaptation, directed by John Huston, flopped deservedly for having cut six songs in spite of a two-hour-plus running time. The 90-minute 1999 ABC-TV film, however, directed by a pre-Chicago Rob Marshall, was quite charming.

The original Annie has been translated into 24 languages, from Hebrew to Japanese, and is proliferating all over the world. (By now, there have been at least as many Annies on American stages as there have been Georges on the British throne.) But the songs from Annie 2, never seen in New York and never previously recorded, appear on a wonderful new two-disc release titled Annie: The Broadway Musical, subtitled 30th Anniversary Production, and surtitled World Premiere Complete Recording.

The new double CD comprises all the songs from the 2007 Chicago revival of the original Annie with the Chicago cast, as well as songs from Annie 2 with a distinguished ad hoc roster, all alums of various Annies, to wit original Annie Andrea McArdle, Gary Beach, Shelly Burch, Carol Burnett, Martin Charnin, Kathie Lee Gifford, Harve Presnell, Sally Struthers, and, of course, the great Conrad John Schuck, who has made an almost as perdurable specialty of Daddy Warbucks as the similarly bald-pated Yul Brynner had made of the King of Siam. Three bonus tracks offer somewhat lesser songs derived, respectively, from the 2004 Australian production, the Broadway 20th anniversary production and a 1977 NBC-TV special, The Annie Christmas Show.

There is more here than on any previous recording, lovingly performed and caringly recorded. The booklet contains mini-essays by Strouse and Charnin, and Meehan's synopsis delightfully illustrated in the Harold Gray mode, but in color, by Philo Barnhart. Also costume designer William Ivey Long's sassy renderings of Theoni V. Aldredge's original costume designs.

Sleeping dogs should be let lie, but leapin' lizards—the cartoon Annie's famous exclamation duly alluded to by the musical Annie—cannot be ignored. Keeping wizards like those heard on or responsible for this recording in your home should account for countless hours of enchantment.

John Simon is the New York theater critic for Bloomberg News.