Family musical ANNIE returns
in thirtieth-anniversary production

A touring Broadway production of ANNIE, the classic musical about an orphan who never gives up hope of finding a family, comes to Penn State for one performance at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, December 4, in Eisenhower Auditorium.

ANNIE, which won seven Tony Awards for its original Broadway production in 1977, boasts a gaggle of adorable girls, a dog named Sandy, and one of musical theatre’s most memorable scores, including “It’s the Hard-Knock Life,” “Easy Street,” “N.Y.C.,” and the ever-optimistic “Tomorrow.”

“You can badmouth little girls all you want. You can complain about the cuteness factor. You can fret that the tyke behind you at the opening night-performance of ANNIE is going to kick the back of your seat until she’s blue in the face,” writes a critic for the Orlando Sentinel. “But the fact is that little girls are the backbone of ANNIE, that uncommonly cheerful musical comedy where an undersize female shows FDR the road back to prosperity. If you don’t have a grand lot of little girls, your ANNIE is stuck in Hooverville. And grand these are, the seven little girls who populate the latest tour of ANNIE.”

Chief among that grand lot is 10-year-old Amanda Balon, a veteran of stage, screen and TV, who stars in the title role. “Balon is more or less a force of nature: She has good timing, a trumpet of a voice, and a grin that goes on forever,” writes the Sentinel critic.

Balon, who was bitten by the theatre bug at age 3 when she convinced her parents to let her audition for a production of ANNIE near her home in Florida, was born in Kansas and lived for two years in her mother’s hometown in Zimbabwe.

“I’ve always liked watching plays, and ANNIE was my favorite one,” Balon says.

In 2005 she represented the United States in the Performing Arts Olympics, a gathering of 3,000 competitors of all ages from fifty-one countries, and earned sixteen medals—six of them gold—and the title of Acting Champion of the World. The weeklong Los Angeles event—judged by directors, producers, agents, actors, and others in the entertainment industry—features dancing, singing, acting, and modeling.

“She’s amazing to us, and we just kind of guide her along the way,” says her father Timothy Balon. “We let her show her talents in every way we can.”

The young actress, who has played leading roles in several independent and made-for-TV films, is in her third year of touring with the thirtieth-anniversary production of ANNIE. Two seasons ago she played Molly, the littlest orphan. Last season she portrayed Duffy and understudied the title role. This season she got her shot to play Annie.

This production of ANNIE has the ability to win over even the toughest critics.

“High on the list of things that make theatre critics bitter cynics is the musical ANNIE,” writes a reviewer for the Knoxville (Tennessee) News Sentinel. “If you’ve been at it very long, as I have, then you have suffered through more bad productions of ANNIE than there are fleas on that mutt Sandy. So it was with an air of dignified resignation that I slumped into my seat…to witness what, by actual count, was my four millionth ANNIE. Two and half hours later, I swear this to be true, I rose to my feet not to get a better shot at the exit, but because I truly wished to honor the cast of the first good ANNIE I have ever seen. The sun will come out tomorrow! And I won’t stare straight into it praying to be struck blind this time. The touring production of ANNIE…got everything right.”

While the show takes its name from the red-haired orphan, Annie is not the only character to make an impact in the musical.

“… The play belongs to Miss Hannigan, the nasty warden of the orphanage where Annie spends her first eleven years of life. She’s the one character in the comic strip-based musical that has emotional depth,” writes the News Sentinel reviewer. “And as played by the riotous Lynn Andrews, the character has even more facets than appear in the script.”

Martin Charnin, ANNIE’s lyricist and the man who directed the original show on Broadway, directs this anniversary production. Charles Strouse wrote the show’s music, while Thomas Meehan provided the book. Tony Award-winning set designer Ming Cho Lee has created a fresh look for this production.

The original Broadway production of ANNIE won Tonys for best musical, score, and book. The musical ran for 2,377 performances, which makes it one of the twenty longest-running shows in Broadway history.

This new staging of ANNIE is produced by Networks Presentations. For a plot summary, click on synopsis next to the photo on the left.  

Artistic Viewpoints, an informal discussion featuring a visiting artist or local expert, is offered in Eisenhower Auditorium one hour before the performance and is free for ticket holders. Artistic Viewpoints regularly fills to capacity. Seating is available on a first-arrival basis.