Whether you lived through the Great Depression or find yourself navigating through modern day complexities, we are reminded that our outlook impacts all.
Annie brought the spark on its opening night, the musical reminding an audience that youthful, fierce determination to find the good, supersedes a hard scrabble upbringing, even sans mom and dad.
The Festival City stage lit up all night for memorable, eye-catching musical numbers.
Annie is no easy feat on stage, but Harper Rae Asch (Annie) and the cast (including the beautiful pooch Sandy) excelled in a big musical hit for the Stratford Festival from director and choreographer Donna Feore.
At the opening set at the orphanage, Annie’s optimism got an early reveal, with her fellow orphans in New York City, as they scrubbed and shivered in filthy, old rags.
Harper and her red curls, as the lead, captivated a sold out Festival Theatre that just couldn’t wait to break into a standing ovation.
It’s The Hard Knock Life epitomized the singing and dancing talent of the youthful portion of the cast.
Laura Condlln was the perfect counterbalance to all that hope – staggering around drinking her ‘medicine’, squashing far-fetched dreams of Annie’s parents returning with their half of her locket, an ill-fated symbol of a reunion that everyone knew would not happen.
Fate would soon intervene in the form of Grace Farrell (Jennifer Rider-Shaw), tasked with bringing an orphan boy (oops!) back to the estate of Oliver Warbucks (Dan Chameroy), where he, too, quickly falls for Annie’s charm.
Farrell and Warbucks show Annie a life she could only dream of, with servants an arms length away ready to provide any amenity and ultimately protected her from a life on the ‘pig farm’ with fake parents Rooster (Mark Uhre) and Lily (Amanda Lundgren).
A new life of promise and love was all she ever deserved.
The cast lived up to the billing, singing and dancing their way into hearts with classics that everyone knows, Feore fusing youthful talent with experienced stage actors.
Annie runs until Nov. 2.
