Fifty years after Annie first took the stage at the Goodspeed Opera House, the musical came home on Friday night. Goodspeed Musicals opened its 50th anniversary production on October 30 in East Haddam, Connecticut, on the same stage where the show had its world premiere in 1976, and the theater marked the moment with a curtain call video captioned, “An opening night 50 years in the making! Annie is officially back!”
The video shows the full company lined up hand in hand for its bows, with 10-year-old Laiken Jules at the center and Scotty, the dog playing Sandy, seated at her feet, as the opening-night audience rose to its feet applauding. It was the first performance of a run that continues through December 27.
The homecoming carries a symmetry few revivals can match. Annie, with a book by Thomas Meehan, music by Charles Strouse and lyrics by Martin Charnin, premiered at Goodspeed on August 10, 1976, then transferred to Broadway the following spring and became one of the most beloved musicals ever written. Directing the anniversary production is Jenn Thompson, who played the orphan Pepper in that original Broadway company and has since directed Annie on tour, including a run at Madison Square Garden.
For Jules, Friday night was a professional debut. In an opening-day interview posted before the performance, she said she was “really excited” and not even tired from tech rehearsals, crediting all the dancing, singing and acting. Asked for her favorite number, she picked “I Don’t Need Anything But You,” her duet with Oliver Warbucks, “because I actually get to show my dance moves in it.” She called Christopher Swan, who plays Warbucks, “such a humble soul,” and predicted that she and the young actors playing the orphans will be “long-lasting friends forever,” adding, “They’re all so talented and very professional.” Asked who she would most want in the audience, she named Kristin Chenoweth and Jeremy Jordan, plus the Allstate spokesman from the commercials.
Even Sandy arrives with history attached. Scotty is a shelter dog trained by Bill Berloni, the Tony-honored animal trainer who found and trained the original Sandy for the 1976 premiere. Jules warned that Scotty “can be a troublemaker” and can run off, “but he’s gonna do so good tonight.”
Jules steps into one of the most famous roles in musical theater by an unusually modern route: as Trevor Decker News reported when her casting was announced, director Thompson found her through the singing videos she posts on TikTok, and she was introduced to audiences at Goodspeed’s anniversary celebration on August 10, exactly fifty years to the day after the premiere. The company around her includes Tony nominee Emily Skinner as Miss Hannigan, Christopher Swan as Oliver Warbucks and Julia Nicole Hunter as Grace Farrell.
The production plays two performances today, Saturday, October 31, at 2:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., and continues through December 27. Family Nights run November 4 through 8, with $15 tickets for kids ages 8 to 18 with each adult ticket and the cast signing autographs after the November 7 performance. The $40 Under 40 offer covers evening performances from October 31 through November 5, and a digital lottery offers $25 tickets. Tickets and the full calendar are at Goodspeed.org.
The production’s official press opening is November 11, when critics will weigh in with reviews. The homecoming, though, has already happened: fifty years on, Annie is back on the stage where she was born.