It bears repeating: The sun’ll come out
‘Annie’ aims to be a ray of light in troubled times
The scene inside the gymnasium at the Hollywood United Methodist Church is controlled chaos. It’s one week until the opening of “Annie” at the Hollywood Bowl, and the cast is barely getting in the swing of rehearsals. Some are off book. Some aren’t. And a good many of the actors are ages 6 to 12. “You can see how excited I am to have this cast together, which really shows the tapestry of the great diversity in Los Angeles,” says director Michael Arden, whose production of “Once on This Island” scored the biggest upset win of the recent Tony Awards, winning best revival of a musical. The mood is one of unbridled enthusiasm as Arden steps aside and actors launch into numbers from the show, which first opened on Broadway in 1977 and spread globally in 1982 with a movie version directed by John Huston. The Hollywood Bowl production, whose three-day run opens Friday, aims to stay true to the spirit of the original while nodding to salient themes of today, Arden says. Many will recall that “Annie” centers on an orphan who wants to find her parents so she can escape a dismal orphanage, run by a sadistic alcoholic named Miss Hannigan. Annie’s path crosses with the gruff but beneficent billionaire Oliver Warbucks, who eventually adopts her despite some conniving behavior on the part of Hannigan and her brother, Rooster.
But what many don’t know or don’t often remember is that “Annie” takes