Synopsis of ANNIE 2: MISS HANNIGAN'S REVENGE - Initial Performance
by Tricia
Trozzi
© 1990, Annie People
Originally published in issue #43, January 1990
This is a synopsis of the
first public preview of Annie 2 on
The house lights went down at
"She's keeping me awake,
ain't she?"
A fight breaks out, and another woman starts yelling, "
Several days later, Oliver
Warbucks' Office on the 125th Floor of the Warbucks Building in New York City
is a busy place, with Grace Farrell and Felix Frankfurter (Warbucks' lawyer)
helping Warbucks at his desk while Annie, wearing the red dress and her hair
curled, reads a book with Sandy at her feet nearby.
Accountants come in and
hesitantly break the news to Warbucks that in 1933 he made only $964 million. Warbucks
is shocked, and the staff sings to explain the financial woes of his company.
The song (1934) turns into a bouncy
march as Warbucks thinks up ways to combat the setbacks: "No more taxis to
the office/ you'll be taking subway rides/learn to turn your paper over/so
you've written on both sides." So things don't look too bad for Warbucks and Annie, even though
they know that Miss Hannigan has escaped. Enter Mrs. Marietta Christmas, Congresswoman
and head of the United Mothers of America, "20 million strong," and
shocked that an unmarried man was allowed to adopt a child. Mrs. Christmas, a
wonderfully obnoxious busybody, tells Warbucks ("the great American bald
eagle himself") that he must get married in 90 days or lose Annie. The search for a wife will be publicized, and
Warbucks must become a married billionaire like John D. Rockefeller. "But then again,"
observes Mrs. Christmas, "he had
hair!" As Warbucks wonders who in the world he could
marry, Annie points to Grace, and Warbucks asks Grace if she would do him the
great favor of--"drawing up a list of all the eligible single women in
On a pier on the
Back at the
were you."
But Grace replies, "Mrs. Warbucks I'll never become." But the staff lets her know that they are on
her side in this upbeat tune (not yet orchestrated at this debut performance).
Later that afternoon at the
Alone with "Daddy,"
Annie asks him since he wants a woman who is blonde and nice looking, of Celtic
ancestry, and from the South, why
does he have to look any further when Miss Farrell is right here? Warbucks explains that he feels he is too old
for Grace and that she deserves something better. He sings, "She's a breath of spring/and
don't I know it/she belongs in the arms of A
YOUNGER MAN." It's a beautiful
song, hinting at how he really feels deep down about Grace.
Drake hands Annie her tennis
scorecard, which Annie gleefully looks at and exclaims, “Oh, boy! We beat 'em 6-nothing, 6-nothing!" Drake replies, "No, Annie, that's 6-love,
6-love. You see, Annie, love means nothing." " Oh, no, Drake, you've got that all
wrong. Love means everything!"
Miss Hannigan begins to put
her plan into action at the Brooklyn Academy of Beauty a few days later. Lionel introduces her to his old friend from
prison, a hairdresser named Maurice, and his staff of primping beauticians, who
have the task of making Miss Hannigan not only disguised but also BEAUTIFUL. "We are building
A week later, the New York
Yankees locker room is the site of the interviews for Warbucks' wife, the Stadium
being the only place large enough to hold all the blonde, Southern
contestants--1,400 strong--who are entering the locker room in groups of
10. Grace and Mrs. Christmas question
each contestant with a short reprise of THE
LADY OF THE HOUSE. "Charlotte O'Hara" remarks that she
cannot eat the complimentary caviar without ketchup on it, something that
piques Warbucks' interest, as he had told Lionel just the other day that he
cannot eat caviar without ketchup on it either.
So, she is chosen as the last finalist to go on to the next round, a
radio--and televised--competition in which Annie will be co-judge with her
"Daddy" to pick her new mother.
Warbucks and Mrs. Christmas seem reasonably satisfied with the way
things have been going so far, but Grace, left to clean up the papers in the
locker room, is unable to hide her feelings any longer. In the powerful song HE DOESN'T KNOW I'M ALIVE, with backup singing by the New York
Yankees in the locker room getting ready for their afternoon game, Grace sings,
"How to sell short he knows/whom to support he knows/whom to oppose/he
knows those/he knows but/he doesn't know I'm alive/deaf dumb and blind to the
woman I am."
Later that same afternoon at
the Fulton Fish Market, Miss Hannigan tells Lionel and Maurice she is worried
that since Annie is a judge in the contest too, she will see through the
disguise of "Charlotte O'Hara."
Suddenly, they see a bunch of ragged boys and girls in the street
hanging out, and Miss Hannigan notices that one girl named Kate McGuire has an
uncanny resemblance to Annie and gets an idea. Kate's brother Spit tries to
intercede, but Miss Hannigan is already offering a million dollars to Kate if
she will help pull "a prank on a friend." In fact, Miss Hannigan
sings to her, "YOU! YOU! YOU! could be Annie too (two)!" And with that, the curtain
comes down on Act I.
Act II opens two months later
on a Tuesday afternoon in June with FDR making a speech on Wall Street. A
little girl in a familiar red dress and red hair appears, and the President
asks her to smile for him, but she will not because she has been watching a
nearby group of unsuccessful apple sellers.
Then FDR begins to sing, "WHEN
YOU SMILE/I smile/your smile/makes my smile/when I am low/nowhere to
go/nothing is clearer/I see you grin/gotta give
in/we're like a mirror." She and
the people in the street are soon caught up in the bouncy, joyful song, and an
energetic dance follows. When the
President leaves, "Annie" says about him, "What a
sucker!"--she is actually not Annie but Kate McGuire! As Maurice removes Kate's "Annie"
wig, Miss Hannigan praises Kate's impersonation of Annie (after several weeks'
training) except for one error--she called the President "Rooz-velt" instead of the correct pronunciation "Roze-velt." Miss Hannigan then appeals to Heavenly Powers
to JUST LET ME GET AWAY WITH THIS ONE
and she will promise never to pull another scam again.
Three days later, on Friday
afternoon in the Art Gallery in the Mansion, Warbucks and Annie, along with
Sandy, Punjab, and the Asp, are planning their outing to go to the grand
reopening of the Luna Park Amusements at Coney Island, to which Warbucks had
donated money. Warbucks says he would
rather go for an amusement park ride than go to the German opera, and he sings
"You'll never know/what is going to happen/at CONEY ISLAND." Warbucks
tells Annie she is old enough to go on the rides all by herself, so Lionel, who
was to drive them, gets a "sudden stomach attack" and asks to be
excused. Drake encourages a reluctant
Grace to go too, saying "open his eyes, open his
heart."
Maurice--in disguise--invites
Annie to go on the Magic Carpet ride, and when "Annie" comes back off
the ride, she whines to Warbucks to buy her something and ignores Grace, to
Grace's bewilderment. Even
The next afternoon, Saturday,
June 16, Lionel and Maurice--both still in disguise--and Spit are back at the
Brooklyn Academy of Beauty with a large steamer trunk, about to proudly show
Miss Hannigan its contents--Annie, bound and gagged. Miss Hannigan tells Annie that she's going to
"you know" her, and that no one will come to rescue her because no
one knows where she is. A somewhat more
sympathetic Lionel offers to get some Ova1tine for Annie, but suddenly Grace
arrives with the limousine that will take "Charlotte O'Hara" to the
wife contest finals. All three schemers
are forced to think fast; Maurice slams the trunk lid down and claims to be
"
That same Saturday evening
Lee DeForest and his television camera (broadcasting
to 6 TV sets) as well as H. V. Kaltenborn of the
radio are preparing to cover the finals of the wife contest. The first of the contestants, Miss Melissa Dabney, first thanks Lionel for telling her how fond
Warbucks is of German opera as she launches into an aria (CORTEZ). Warbucks winces and
scowls at Lionel who merely shrugs. The
second contestant is replaced at the last minute--by Mrs. Marietta
Christmas! "Have you lost your
marbles, Mrs. Christmas?" asks Warbucks.
In honor of FDR sitting in on the event, Mrs. Christmas begins to sing
his "favorite song"--"The sun’ll come
up, Tomorrow"-- when FDR interrupts her saying,
"Stop singing that song this instant!!
I'm tired of it--I've heard it too damn many times! Besides, you sang 'up' instead of 'out'." Mrs. Christmas admits she is really a
divorcee and she "had such high hopes" of winning the wife contest
herself. The third contestant, of
course, is "Charlotte O'Hara," who uses the information leaked to her
by Lionel to surely please Warbucks by singing an Irish lullaby (A TENEMENT LULLABY) he remembered from
his childhood. As "
Shortly after, Lee DeForest delivers the bad news to Warbucks: 5 of the 6 TV viewers turned off the
broadcast before it was done; "I guess contests will never work on
television." Irving Berlin calls to
send his good wishes to Warbucks (he was the only one who watched the whole
thing), and Warbucks tells him that even if his investment in television doesn't
pay big, he "can always start over--in this country, God bless
Grace, obviously crushed, is
left alone with Warbucks and she tells him that she "would be glad to
continue working for him if it is all right with Mrs. Warbucks." Watching Grace exit,
Warbucks sings a reprise of A YOUNGER
MAN.
In the Silver Stateroom of
the Warbucks Yacht the next day--Sunday morning, June 17--Miss Hannigan cannot
contain her happiness that her plan has worked.
Kate McGuire as "Annie" comes in and Miss Hannigan tells her
to shut up with saying "I love you, Mommy" all the time. She ponders
the traditional "old, new, borrowed, blue"
and Kate suggests "for 'old', how about your face?" Kate also wants to smoke a cigarette, and
Miss Hannigan throws her out of the stateroom.
Surrounded by evidence of vast wealth, Miss Hannigan decides, "I COULD GET USED TO THIS." In this song she thinks of what she will do
as Mrs. Warbucks--"I love it/I'm awful/I love it/she's [Grace] the first
one I'll dismiss/with one step and one jab/goodbye Asp and
That afternoon the Main Deck
of the Warbucks Yacht is crowded with guests, including Franklin and Eleanor
Roosevelt ("Annie" greets him as President "Rooz-ve1t"), Albert Einstein, and Mayor LaGuardia, who is
officiating the ceremony. Warbucks looks
slightly nervous, "Annie" and Sandy at his side, as are
Suddenly the clues all come
together for Grace who stops the wedding at the last moment and opens the
trunk, revealing the real Annie, dazed but unhurt. Now everyone is perplexed at the sight of two
girls in red dresses and red curly hair. "That's Annie, and that's Annie too?" wonders the President. Annie chases "Annie" and wrestles
her to the deck.
Maurice tries to escape by
climbing up the rigging, but Warbucks climbs up after him, punches him out, and
then swings on a rope Tarzan-style back down to the deck to the admiration of
all, including himself. "I'm not such an old man after all!" he says,
and proposes marriage to Grace. At first
she jokes, "Gee, I don't know..." but then happily accepts, and
LaGuardia marries them on the spot.
Annie is very happy with her new mother, and they are all glad that Miss
Hannigan is going back to jail. Warbucks
directs WHEN YOU SMILE to Grace and
Annie, and then everyone joins in singing.
Miss Hannigan pauses to give one last parting shot: "Annie--that's twice!" she growls
as she is taken away.
But the reprise of WHEN YOU SMILE goes on and the curtain
came down at about
* * * * * *
---CHANGES TO THE SHOW between December
22 and January 20 ---
ACT I: There is now an overture...Part way through
the run the House of Detention scene was put after the Office scene, but
eventually was removed entirely...The 1934 song is out but new words were
written to the same melody; the new song is called TOMORROW IS NOW with lyrics containing titles from songs from Annie, a sort of parody replacing the
earlier Orphanage parody...Annie has straight hair all the way through the
first act now; before she was curly the whole time...6 Orphans are added as
visitors to the Warbucks
household, presumably Annie's old friends from the Orphanage...Part of the
reprise (the squash/galoshes rhyme) about mommies by Annie is still in--sung
with the Orphans--but the reference to Miss Hannigan being in jail is out;
instead Miss H. had been supposedly shipped to Australia by Warbucks but jumped
ship. However, those at the Warbucks
mansion do not know that she is on the loose. Annie's song goes right into a
brand new one called CHANGES which
she sings to and with the Orphans (it's scary/shaky/everything is
strange/'cause nothing is certain but change)...The whole opening scene is much
shorter; all the stuff about Warbucks' finances is out...The HOW COULD I EVER SAY NO duet is out,
but JUST LET ME GET AWAY WITH THIS ONE was moved from the second act here into the
tugboat scene. Lionel and Miss Hannigan
are old friends reunited, not meeting for the first time--and they are no
longer boyfriend and girlfriend, just partners in crime. The idea of murdering Annie is out; "I'd
like her to live a long, long time," says Miss Hannigan, "and have
lots of root canals"...The remarks about the tennis score are now made
with Grace, not Drake...Punjab and the Asp do not appear now until the tennis
court scene, at which time they are introduced to Warbucks who hires them on
the spot to be Annie's bodyguards...A
YOUNGER MAN is basically the same, except Grace is from Connecticut, not
Kentucky...THE LADY OF THE HOUSE
(now orchestrated) is pretty much the same except for the presence of the
Orphans in the Mansion. There is a little about Warbucks' earnings for 1933
mentioned in passing taken from the original second scene...the BEAUTIFUL scene is much shorter with
not as much dancing. Maurice's hairdresser character is much more villainous;
now he and his beauticians are gangsters, and his name was changed to Charlie Spenoli. Miss Hannigan's whole disguise is more subdued and
realistic. No more Charlotte O'Hara; now
she is disguised as Frances Riley from
ACT II: WHEN
YOU SMILE with the President remained until the last week with "What a
sucker!" omitted. However, the
final weekend had WHEN YOU SMILE
with the President completely out; instead Warbucks has taken Annie and the
Orphans to Yankee Stadium and they are in the locker room meeting Babe
Ruth. The Babe has just had a bad game,
and Annie and the Orphans cheer up the ballplayers with the song. The choreography is the same, except that
this time the "real" Annie is singing the song and dancing, the
"fake" Annie (by the way, all the way through the play Danielle does
both Kate McGuire and Annie, except for the times in the play that both Annies are on the stage at the same time). Annie has curly
hair for the first time in this scene now...Grace agrees readily to go to