Long forgotten photos of ANNIE 2: MISS HANNIGAN'S REVENGE

[morosco]

Posted: 6/23/14 at 11:25pm

NYPLDigital Collections

[jv92]

Posted: 6/23/14 at 11:29pm

Why is Dorothy Loudon dressed up like Carol Channing?

[morosco]

Posted: 6/23/14 at 11:32pm

lol

[Musical Master]

Posted: 6/24/14 at 12:39am

Hello Hannigan! It's so nice to have you back where you belong!

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 6/24/14 at 9:17am

If I recall correctly, Miss Hannigan pretends to be someone else. Which might explain that costume.

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 6/24/14 at 9:20am

There's a killer song that was written for ANNIE 2 that I discovered while working on RAGS. I was putting together a fundraising concert in Charles Strouse's honor, and wanted to represent every single one of his scores.

Now, I'm not sure which incarnation of ANNIE 2 it's from, but it's a bit of an 11 o'clock number for Hannigan. As she impersonates someone else, she sings about the awful circumstances of her life. It was called "But You Go On..."

[ljay889]

Posted: 6/24/14 at 9:27am

The original plot for ANNIE 2 is pretty cool.

The plot, in brief: The curtain rises on the Women's House of Detention in Greenwich Village, with Miss Hannigan in prison scheming for revenge. She soon escapes during a fire. Meanwhile, Congresswoman Marietta Christmas tells Warbucks it is illegal for an unmarried man to adopt an 11-year-old girl and unless he marries she will see to it that Annie is removed from his custody. He decides to hold a contest for a wife - any single woman interested in a bald, middle-aged man with protruding ears and $900 million is eligible. Miss Hannigan reads about the contest and decides to disguise herself and try to win.

The secret? Miss Hannigan discovers another orphan, who looks just like Annie and who will be trained to take over when Miss Hannigan pulls a switch. The fake Annie will choose Miss Hannigan as her mother.

http://www.nytimes.com/1990/01/28/theater/how-annie-2-skidded-off-a-bumpy-road-to-broadway.html?src=pm&pagewanted=1

[Tag]

Posted: 6/24/14 at 10:00am

iluvtheatertrash I'm pretty sure you're referring to Annie Warbucks which was a second attempt at an Annie sequel (Annie 2 being the first). But You Go On was an Act 1 song sung by Mrs. Kelly who was the daughter of the villain Commissioner Doyle (Hannigan wasn't in Annie Warbucks).

[newintown]

Posted: 6/24/14 at 10:13am

"But You Go On" is was actually in both Annie II and Annie Warbucks.

Personally, I find both shows deeply flawed and unsatisfying; having seen Annie Warbucks, and only heard the full show on an "unofficial" recording of Annie II. I don't think the re-write fixed the basic problems, just changed them.

Loudon gave an interview after the failure of Annie II, and was quite clear that she thought the show just wasn't funny, and that comes through on the recording - when Dorothy Loudon's scenes are playing to silence then something is really wrong with the writing.

Updated On: 6/24/14 at 10:13 AM

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 6/24/14 at 10:52am

Thanks, guys. I had a hard time nailing down exactly how/where the song was used. I was told by someone at one point it was for Miss Hannigan and that she was pretending to be someone else.

That is a killer story song. Flops aside, and he has many, Charles Strouse is a magnificent composer.

[newintown]

Posted: 6/24/14 at 11:53am

It's a decent song- a bit melodramatic. The problem with it in Annie II is that Miss Hannigan has been, since the start of the first show, a comic cartoon; to give her this ultra-sad, ultra-schmaltzy serious sob story is just confusing the audience - they've been set up for years to laugh at/with Hannigan; now they're told to cry - and it's not even Hannigan's story! It's all a lie she makes up in order to marry Warbucks and kill Annie. In that context, the song makes no sense, and leaves (I imagine) most people just bewildered as to what it's about.

[JohnyBroadway]

Posted: 6/24/14 at 12:18pm

As flawed as it may be, Annie Warbucks did feature some musical gems. " I got Me, Love, it could've been wonderful."

[morosco]

Posted: 6/24/14 at 12:22pm

"A Younger Man" is also a good song (or was that just Annie Warbucks?).

[gleek4114]

Posted: 6/24/14 at 12:28pm

I find flops interesting. I know a little about the show and I agree that the storyline sounds great. Also in Annie 2 they kept switching Annie's 11 o'clock number. It switched between My Daddy, All I Got is Me, and I Guess Things Happen for the Best. In my opinion they are all pretty good songs but they are the SAME song. The tune is exactly the same which backs up newintown's point that they never FIXED the problems they just CHANGED them into a different problem. Negativity aside I enjoy listening to my unofficial recording and the studio cast recording they made a few years ago for Annie's 30th anniversary. I guess Charles just could not write sequels, Bring Back Birdie is HORRIBLE in my opinion.

[morosco]

Posted: 6/24/14 at 12:38pm

Has anyone ever written a successful sequel to a musical?

[newintown]

Posted: 6/24/14 at 12:44pm

It could be argued that March of the Falsettos is a good sequel to In Trousers, and Falsettoland is a good sequel to March of the Falsettos. I certainly preferred seeing them done independently, rather than as one evening.

I think all other musical sequels have flopped financially and been poorly accepted by audiences and reviewers.

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 6/24/14 at 4:28pm

Thanks for the backstory, newintown. I only know the song as a stand-alone, so I enjoyed it quite a bit.

[newintown]

Posted: 6/24/14 at 4:30pm

As a cabaret number, it's not bad at all.

[MrsSallyAdams]

Posted: 6/24/14 at 4:49pm

More on Annie Warbucks here:
http://threepanelmusicals.blogspot.com/2014/06/annie-warbucks.html

[Tag]

Posted: 6/24/14 at 5:27pm

Some info and a gorgeous version of But You Go On sung by Lindsay Mendez.
Link

[KathyNYC2]

Posted: 6/24/14 at 6:21pm

Am I imagining that there was this song.."I always knew" sung by Annie from either Annie 2 or Annie Warbucks or whatever it was called. I seem to have this tune in my head...

[Tag]

Posted: 6/25/14 at 12:04am

^Yes that is right.

[ChairinMain]

Posted: 6/25/14 at 4:50am

Marian Seldes was in this?! Yeesh, guess they cant be winners...

[ddenoff2]

Posted: 6/25/14 at 9:37am

Martin Charnin, ANNIE's proud 'papa' and creator, and director of the upcoming new Tour production, asked me to post this on his behalf. If you respond, please be respectful!

To whom it may concern:

First off, thanks to whoever it was, for digging up the photos of Ronnie Graham, Dorothy Loudon and Danielle Finley who was our Annie. They are treasures.

Secondly, to clear up score questions, and avoiding confronting the praise, or the criticism that accompanied the threads, Annie 2, was undoubtedly a wrong-headed idea.

It was rooted in the notion that an audience would be more interested in how Hannigan got revenge on Annie, than how Annie's life was going to change, having been adopted by Oliver Warbucks. That was revealed to me, after the opening number on the opening night in Washington, when I ran up the aisle from my seat, to seek out the nearest hole to bury myself in.

Although we knew we weren't going to come into NYC in that condition, we immediately went to work on restructuring and reconceiving the musical. We rewrote, restructured, and rehearsed for the 5 weeks ( of sold out performances, by the bye) we had left in Washington. The Washington Post critic, David Richards,who was scathing when we first opened, was asked to return at the end of the run, to see it any improvements were made. In the bar at the Watergate Hotel, after the final performances, we met, and he applauded the new work, and the direction, and strongly urged me to continue to pursue the idea of the sequel....which was now being called a continuation....and dropping Hannigan, altogether. Which we did.

Charles Strouse had written some extraordinary music for Annie 2, and I had no intention of losing any of those tunes. During our Washington run, I rewrote 4 of them (new lyrics) and all 4 still live in Annie Warbucks. "But You Go On" was one of them. Dorothy Loudon generously learned it, and tested it for me, on stage, where it stopped the show. It did, off-broadway as well, three years later, when Donna McKechnie sang it on the stage of the Variety Arts Theatre in NYC, when the newly minted Annie Warbucks (once called Annie 2) opened to rave reviews from all 8 New York dailys, as well as Variety, and USA today.

Annie Warbucks is being performed all over the country today, and audiences are cheering it, and...it will soon wend it's way to Broadway, where it will, perhaps, be anointed as the Best Musical Revival of 201?.

Martin Charnin


Updated On: 6/26/14 at 09:37 AM

[bryan2]

Posted: 6/25/14 at 3:10pm

The song Above The Law. in Annie Warbucks (originally it was the song ANNIE 2) is a good song....I liked it better when Dorothy Loudon sang it as ANNIE 2 but the music is very good