Annie Warbucks

Annie Warbucks is a musical with a book by Thomas Meehan, music by Charles Strouse, and lyrics by Martin Charnin. A sequel to the 1977 Tony Award-winning hit Annie, based on Harold Gray's Little Orphan Annie comic strip, it begins immediately after Annie ended.

Plot

On Christmas morning in 1933, when Child Welfare Commissioner Harriet Doyle (replacing the original's Miss Hannigan as the villain of the piece) arrives on the scene to inform Daddy Warbucks he must marry within sixty days or else the child will be returned to the orphanage. Daddy Warbucks' whirlwind search for a fitting bride uncovers not only a plot by Doyle and her daughter Sheila Kelly to strip him of his fortune, but also his true feelings for his long-time assistant, Grace Farrell. A gaggle of cute little girls seeking parents and President Franklin D. Roosevelt return to take part in the shenanigans.

Background

Annie Warbucks was the second attempt at an Annie sequel. The first, entitled Annie 2: Miss Hannigan's Revenge, opened on December 22, 1989 at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. to universally dismal reviews. Extensive efforts to get it into shape for a Broadway opening failed, and the project was abandoned.Rothstein, Mervyn. . The New York Times, January 16, 1990

Production history

Developed in a workshop at the Goodspeed Opera House, the off-Broadway production, directed by Charnin and choreographed by Peter Gennaro, opened after...
Read More