Leapin’ lizards! An all-new tour of the Tony Award-winning musical “Annie” is coming to the Lied Center for Performing Arts from March 20-23.
Holding onto hope when times are tough can take a lot of determination, and sometimes that determination comes in a surprisingly small package. Little Orphan Annie (played on this tour by Hazel Vogel) has reminded generations of theatergoers that sunshine is always right around the corner. The musical features such beloved songs as “Maybe,” “It’s the Hard Knock Life,” “You’re Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile,” “Easy Street, “I Don’t Need Anything But You” and “Tomorrow.” This celebration of family, optimism and the American spirit remains the ultimate cure for all of life’s hard knocks.
“Annie” is based on Harold Gray’s popular comic strip “Little Orphan Annie,” which premiered in the 1920s in the New York Daily News and became one of the most widely read strips in the ’30s and ’40s. The original production of “Annie” had its world premiere on Aug. 10, 1976, at the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam, Connecticut, and opened on Broadway on April 21, 1977, at the Alvin Theatre (now the Neil Simon Theatre). It went on to win the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for best musical; seven Drama Desk Awards, including best musical; seven Tony Awards, including best musical, best book and best score; and a Grammy Award for best cast show album. It closed on Broadway after 2,377 performances.
“Annie”was revived on Broadway in 1997 and again in 2014. It has been made into a film three times (1982, 1999 and 2014) and was most recently featured as a live television production on NBC. The show remains one of the biggest Broadway musical hits ever. It has been performed in 28 languages and has been running somewhere around the world for 45 years.
The Lied Center performances are 7:30 p.m. March 20 and 21, 2 and 7:30 p.m. March 22 and 1:30 p.m. March 23. Tickets start at $59, with half-price tickets available for youth and Husker students. Learn more about tickets here, by calling 402-472-4747 or by visiting the Lied’s box office, 301 N. 12th St.
