Annie Live!

This is a continuation of a tradition. Annie is a time-tested story and knows no skin color. It is at its core surviving and making something of a non ideal situation. Little Orphan Annie, a real American success story.

My wife and I really enjoyed it. The production numbers were good, all the singing was passable, some excellent. They seemed to feature Daddy Warbucks a bit more, no doubt because of who was in the role. The young actress that played Annie was a good choice. The other kids, dancers and acrobats, were all excellent.

Live on NBC. Good production!

Live productions are hard. The imperfections are what make Live theater exciting. When scenes are performed to perfection Live theater sings.

Some reviewers (marci) simply don't understand theater.

First complaint is that in the comic strip upon which the musical is based, none of the characters had eyeballs, yet here, they all did. Why couldn't the producers come up with something for actors with eyeballs, instead of...

If you really think the point of the story has anything to do with Annie's hair or skin color, I feel very sorry for you.

I think the "over the top" interpretation. Of Miss Hannigan started with Carol Burnett. It's a little much for me, but that's just a matter of taste. (Hey, for me, one of the highlights was catching the stagehands skirt across the back of stage--different strokes for different folks.)

Different versions have accented different parts of the story; this is hardly my favorite. More fleshing out of the plot to kidnap Annie to get the money and Miss Hannigan's sudden act of conscience would bring more sense to the story.

All that said, it does project the optimism that's the point of the play. It's not that hard to sit back and enjoy (unless you rely on the captioning, which, done live, rather than from the script, was late, and often truncated).

Aside from some excellent dancers, especially those young girls doing leaps and walk-overs, I didn't think much of this. It felt like a high school production. Did we really need 4 productions of Annie. I'd love for them to do Mame with Cher. Now that would be something to see.

Annie, a favorite theatre production and movie, I was onboard to watch the Live TV version. I was sad to see so many script changes in this version. They lost the Annie "sparkle". We muscled through, but found it a little difficult. Beautiful voices, great dancing and some good acting but not stellar across the board. I actually felt it was the Director adding and deleting script, along with taking humerous moments for Annie and making them emotional. Needed to be more uplifting.

I'm happy to see a racially diverse cast. I did wonder why Annie did not have a red wig. Titus did not do the role of Rooster well. I loved Harry, Taraji, Nicholle and the rest of the adult cast. The children did a great job.

Overall, I gave 6 out of 10 as I felt the director caused many of the lackluster issues, as the rest of the cast portrayed based on his direction. That said, if you are an Annie fan it is worth watching.