Local Politician, TV and Radio Personalities To Perform In Morris Park's ANNIE 11/5-20

Morris Park Players Community Theatre proudly opens its 10-11 season with the Broadway musical monster-hit Annie, November 5, 6, 12, 19, 20 at 7:30 pm and November 13 and 14 at 2:00 pm at their new home of Thomas Edison High School Auditorium. Annie is one of Broadway's longest running shows ever, full of great songs and the delightfully heart-warming tale of the Depression-era orphan girl who finds happiness with a grouchy millionaire and his loving gal.

Morris Park Players announces Annie cameo guest appearances by City of Minneapolis Council Member for Ward One Kevin Reich (Nov 5 and 12), the WCCO Radio host John Hines (Nov 6), Thomas Edison High School Principal Carla Steinbach (Nov 13), WCCO TV reporter Jason DeRusha (Nov 14), and KSTP 5 Eyewitness News sports anchor Joe Schmit (Nov 20). Nov 19 guest to be announced. Guests will perform the role of "Judge Brandeis." See cameo biographies below.

Tickets ($12-$15) are available at http://www.morrisparkplayers.org/ or 612-724-8373.

Move to Thomas Edison High School
After Folwell Middle School closed its doors due to budget cuts, Morris Park Players (MPP) needed to leave their residence in south Minneapolis after 25 years. The loyal audience of MPP has followed their productions from previous locations of Nokomis Junior High and Roosevelt Senior High for many years prior to that. Thomas Edison High School in northeast Minneapolis has invited and welcomed MPP into their Auditorium and school as their new permanent home.

Edison's teacher Stacey Kilton will play the role of Sophie, and 12th grade student Taji Robinson, and 9th grade student Skye Horton will perform as part of the adult chorus in this production of Annie.

Description of Annie
Originally opening on Broadway in 1977 and running for an amazing 2,377 performances, Annie is based on the beloved comic strip that debuted in 1924. It's a big-hearted musical for the whole family, complete with adorable orphans, a loveable dog, lots of great singing and dancing, a live radio broadcast, a Christmas party, all of New York City on one stage (well, almost), and a happy ending for everybody.

Annie is a spunky Depression-era orphan determined to find her parents, who abandoned her years ago on the doorstep of a New York City Orphanage run by the cruel, embittered Miss Hannigan. In adventure after fun-filled adventure, Annie foils Miss Hannigan's evil machinations, befriends President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and finds a new family and home in billionaire Oliver Warbucks, his personal secretary Grace Farrell, and a lovable mutt named Sandy.

The London production opened May 3, 1978, followed by the Japanese production in August 1978. The film version opened in May 1982. The 20th Anniversary production of Annie opened March 26, 1997 and starred Nell Carter as Miss Hannigan. "Little girls" who've played Annie and gone on to successful careers in film and theatre include Andrea McArdle (the original Annie), Sarah Jessica Parker, and Aileen Quinn.

When Annie first opened on Broadway, Clive Barnes said in the New York Times, "Annie is an intensely likeable musical. You might even call it lovable." Douglas Watt in the Daily News called it a "big, splashy, sentimental, old-fashioned musical." And Martin Gottfried of the New York Post wrote, "Annie is at the heart of musical comedy; big, warmhearted, funny, and over-flowing with spirit."

Annie won the 1977 Tony Award for Best Musical, as well as Tony Awards for Best Score, Best Book, Best Choreography (Peter Gennaro), Best Actress (Dorothy Loudon), Best Scenic Design (David Mitchell) and Best Costume Design (Theoni V. Aldredge). It also won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Musical.

Annie's lyrics are by Martin Charnin, who also directed the 20th Anniversary Broadway revival of the show. Charnin has received for Tony Award nominations, three Grammy nominations, Gold Records, two Platinum records, and six Drama Desk Awards. The show's composer, Charles Strouse, has written the music for eleven Broadway musicals, including the classic Bye Bye Birdie. He has received six Tony Award nominations and three Tony Awards.

Thomas Meehan, who wrote the book for Annie, also wrote the book for Richard Rodgers' last Broadway musical, I Remember Mama, and the screenplays for To Be or Not to Be and Spaceballs.

Show Credits:
Book by Thomas Meehan
Music by Charles Strouse
Lyrics by Martin Charnin

The MPP presentation of Annie is directed by Minrod Mier and produced by Chuck Stenger.

Background on Annie
Shortly before Christmas, 1971, Martin Charnin, a lyricist and director, bought a collection of "Little Orphan Annie" comic strips and began imagining a musical comedy based on the main character. But everybody thought he was nuts. He says he got really tired of trying to convince people the show could work and hearing only, "But she has no eyes!" Charnin brought the idea to bookwriter Thomas Meehan, who said, "Yuck." Later, Meehan says, "I considered it to be a terrible idea - I just don't like the two-dimensional - but we started to talk about it, and it seemed as if there might be something interesting in the kid and this enormously wealthy man." He thought, "Perhaps if we make the story of Little Orphan Annie three-dimensional and Dickensian, and turned Annie into a symbol of hope and optimism in a world pervaded with cynicism and despair, we could create a musical that at the same time moved and heartened audiences."

Composer Charles Strouse says, "I was absolutely convinced that doing Annie was a dumb idea, and it turned out to be the biggest moneymaker I ever had."

But Charnin believed in the show. He says, "I saw it as the story of two orphans" - both Annie and Daddy Warbucks. After finally convincing Meehan and Strouse to join him in writing the show, Charnin and his collaborators created the musical in fourteen months. However, it took four and a half years to get to Broadway because no producer thought it stood a chance.
Meehan says in Otis L. Guernsey's book Broadway Song and Story, "I think of Annie at some level as a political play, and in 1972 (when they began work) the Vietnam war was continuing. There was a recession in 1972, with feelings of pessimism and downness. The Depression quickly came to mind as an analogous time, when the country very down. The idea was to do something kind-of up, optimistic, fighting cynicism and pessimism."

Annie tried out at the Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut where Andrea McArdle took over the role of Annie shortly before the opening. At Goodspeed, the show got mediocre reviews but it won the approval of Mike Nichols, who offered to produce it on Broadway. After a highly successful run at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., the show opened on Broadway on April 21, 1977, and was quickly adopted by theatergoers.

"In Act Two...Annie becomes a metaphor figure," says Meehan, "appearing in the White House, standing on the desk and singing ‘Tomorrow.' She stops being real and becomes totally a metaphor for the spirit of how to survive and get out of bad times, how to endure, how to keep on keeping on. That's what it's about." America wanted to hear that message.

During the Broadway run of Annie, there were four touring companies that were launched from the original production to bring the show to major U.S. cities for three and a half years. Subsequently, 20th and 30th anniversary tours have made the score known world-wide. There have been 27 major foreign productions of Annie and it has been revived yearly in Tokyo for years. In 1982, the movie version (starring Albert Finney, Aileen Quinn, Ann Reinking, and Carol Burnett) was released. The show, which had cost $800,000 to produce, made a profit of $20 million-and the figure keeps growing.

The sequel to Annie, Annie 2: Miss Hannigan's Revenge, went into rehearsal on November 6, 1989, after a nationwide search for the new Annie. It opened at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. The show was revised and renamed Annie 2 before re-opening at the Goodspeed Opera House and subsequently touring the country. It was again renamed Annie Warbucks prior to opening at New York's off-Broadway Variety Arts Theatre on August 9,1993. Annie Warbucks ran for seven months but never went to Broadway.

Finally, in 1997, after another nationwide search for an Annie, Annie returned to Broadway. Starring Nell Carter (and later Sally Struthers) as Miss Hannigan, the new staging garnered enthusiastic reviews. Controversy erupted when the original Annie, Joanna Pacitti, was fired and replaced by her understudy, Brittny Kissinger (who usually played July) while battling bronchitis. Most likely because of a lawsuit and subsequent media coverage, the production suffered a short run. However, it was followed by many years of successful national tours.

Accolades/Awards: Winner of seven (7) Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Book and Best Score, as well as the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. The original cast album won the Grammy.

It's a Dog's Life
The original "Sandy" was part Airedale terrier and part Irish setter. He was purchased in a Connecticut pound for eight dollars on the day he was scheduled to be put to sleep. He stayed with the show for six years on Broadway and even had a book published about him, called Sandy: The Autobiography of a Star, "as told to" William Berloni, Sandy's trainer. Interestingly, Berloni was only an apprentice carpenter until Martin Charnin sent him to the pound to find a dog for the show. Since then, Berloni has made a career of training dogs to play Sandy in productions of Annie, and in hundreds of shows and films. Sandy died in 1990, at the ripe old age of 16.

Where Are They Now?
Some of the girls who played Annie on Broadway went on to exciting careers in show business. Others enjoyed their moment in the limelight and then carried on normal lives out of show business.
Andrea McArdle, who originated the title role on Broadway, went on to play Judy Garland in the biographical TV movie Rainbow. She has also appeared on Broadway in Jerry Girls (1985), Andrew Lloyd Webber's Starlight Express (1987), and Rodgers & Hammerstein's State Fair (1996).

Sarah Jessica Parker was the third girl to play the lead on Broadway. She went on to appear in the revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, with husband Matthew Broderick, The Substance of Fire, Sylvia, The Heidi Chronicles, To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday and other plays and musicals. She has appeared on screen in The First Wives Club, Extreme Measures, The Substance of Fire, Ed Wood, Footloose, Hocus Pocus, Honeymoon in Vegas, Mars Attack!, and many other films. Perhaps most famous for her role in Sex and the City, Miss Parker also played the lead in a television series called Square Pegs in 1982, and had continuing roles in A Year in the Life and Equal Justice.

Danielle Brisebois was an orphan in the original cast of Annie and was later promoted to the leading role. After Annie, she appeared on TV in All in the Family, Archie Bunker's Place, Knot's Landing, and Days of Our Lives. She has also appeared in a number of feature films and TV movies.

Up Next
Morris Park Players continues its 10-11 season after Annie with a spring production of Grease. Audition details will be announced later in 2010.

About Morris Park Players
Morris Park Players began as the Morris Park Father Singers in spring 1952. Over the years, the group transformed and expanded its repertoire, first changing in 1968 to the Morris Park Singers, and again in 1981 to its present name, Morris Park Players. With more than 100 productions to its credit over 58 years, Morris Park Players continues to provide quality musical theatre to the community as well as many opportunities for individuals to contribute and develop their talents. The theater's commitment to children and families is written into the group's charter and the tradition extends through generations. Many members of the cast, crew, and board worked with the theater as children and now have children of their own performing with them in performances.

For more information visit http://www.morrisparkplayers.org/ or call 612-724-8373. Like Morris Park Players on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/mpplayers.

About Edison High School
For more information about Edison High School, contact Pamela Vertina, Public Relations Coordinator, at 612-668-1310 or Pamela.Vertina@mpls.k12.mn.us or visit the Edison High School web site at http://edison.mpls.k12.mn.us/.

Thomas Edison High School
700 22nd Ave NE
Minneapolis, MN 55418

Tickets and Information
The MPP presentation of Annie runs November 5, 6, 12, 19, 20 at 7:30 pm and November 13 and 14 at 2:00 pm at their new home of Thomas Edison High School Auditorium. Tickets ($12-$15) and more information are available at http://www.morrisparkplayers.org/ or 612-724-8373.

Cameo Guest Biographies
Kevin Reich is the City of Minneapolis Council Member for Ward One. He grew up in Northeast Minneapolis and graduated from Edison High School. While at Edison he participated in Student Council, was captain of the football and track teams and was an all-conference wrestler. He is currently a board member on the Edison Community & Sports Foundation. Before winning election to the City Council he spent 8 years as the Project Director for Holland Neighborhood Improvement Association, was a founding Board Member for the Eastside Food Co-op and served for many years as a the Board of Director's Co-Chair for the Windom Park Neighborhood Association.

John Hines, one of the best known personalities in Twin Cities' broadcasting, has been a mainstay of Minnesota radio and television for more than 38 years.

The lifelong Twin Cities resident got started in radio in Illinois, then moved home to WWTC in 1973. After that John spent six years with Hubbard Broadcasting on KSTP?AM and hosting Twin Cities Today on KSTP?TV. He returned to radio in 1981when Hines and Berglund helped take WLOL?FM to the top of the ratings in the Twin cities. Then it was on to K102, where he helped earn Station of the Year honors from the Country Music Association.

Hines was the first non-journalist to be embedded with our soldiers in Iraq. He's been buried alive for 48 hours and worked with the M.S. Society of Minnesota, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Tee It Up For the Troops, benefitting the Wounded Warrior Project, and many other charity organizations.

John received the Tom Rivers Humanitarian Award in recognition of his generous service and dedication to community events and charities.

John can be heard regularly on WCCO Radio from 8-10PM Monday thru Friday.

Jason DeRusha
Jason DeRusha filed his first report for WCCO-TV on April Fool's Day in 2003. Since then, he's earned four Emmy Awards, the Jaycees named him one of the Ten Outstanding Young Minnesotans, and the city of Minneapolis proclaimed Sept. 21 "Jason DeRusha Day." No fooling.

Today, Jason reports "Good Questions" Monday through Friday on WCCO's 10 p.m. news. While at WCCO, he was among the first television reporters on the scene and on-the-air at the Interstate 35W bridge collapse. He's covered flash flooding, tornadoes and school shootings. He's become a sought-after expert on the intersection of social media and journalism, with one blogger naming him one of the Top 20 Minnesota Social Media Innovators. City Pages named him Best Online Personality of 2008.

Before coming to WCCO-TV, Jason spent three years as a reporter at WISN-TV in Milwaukee. Prior to that, he anchored the weekend news at KWQC-TV in Davenport, Iowa, reported for WREX-TV in Rockford, Ill. and interned at "ABC World News Tonight" in New York.

Jason's been nominated for 15 Regional Emmy Awards, and he's won Regional Emmys for Online Personality (twice), Health Reporting, and On-Going Feature Series. In 2007, he won the National Outstanding Media Award from FCCLA (Family, Career and Community Leaders of America) for his work with that organization.

In the Twin Cities, Jason serves as Vice-President of the Board of Governors of the National Television Academy. He also spends time mentoring future broadcasters.

Jason's a glass art collector, and he's been a judge for the Uptown Art Fair. He's also tried to blow a couple glass art pieces, with limited success. He's also an aspiring wine and dining expert.

A proud graduate of Marquette University (magna cum laude), Jason lives in Maple Grove with his wife Alyssa (a Wayzata High graduate), and their sons Seth and Sam.

Carla Steinbach
Carla has been at Thomas Edison High School since spring of 2007 and has worked in the district for 23 years. She started out as a teacher at Southwest High School in1986, and from there went to Northeast Middle School and taught social studies for 11 years. Steinbach became an assistant principal and eventually principal at Folwell Middle School. She enjoys Edison High School and feels they have exceptional staff and wonderful students. Steinbach feels that "The community in which Edison resides is an exciting and upcoming neighborhood. It has much to offer students, families and businesses. Northeast is rich in culture and a "hot bed" for the arts."

Joe Schmit returned to 5 Eyewitness News in January 2010 to serve as sports director and main sports anchor after a three-year and a half break from broadcasting.

Over his 21 years with 5 Eyewitness News, Joe won thirteen Emmy Awards from the National Television Academy. In 2000, he took home four Emmys in the categories of Sports Anchor, Sports Program, Sports Live/Unedited Program and Sports Segment/Feature. Joe received an Emmy award in both 2002 and 2003 for Best Sports Anchor and Best Sports Program for "Joe Schmit's SportsWrap". He was also honored with a National Headliner Award for leading 5 Eyewitness News' coverage of the 2001 death of Minnesota Vikings offensive lineman, Kory Stringer.

Before joining the station in 1985, he was sports director for WBAY-TV in Green Bay, Wisconsin. His career also includes positions as weekend sports anchor for KCRG-TV in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and WKBT-TV in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Joe earned his degree in Mass Communications from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.

Joe has been honored twice for his dedication to the Brothers and Big Sisters program. He received the Jim Kelly Distinguished Service Award in 2000 and the Odyssey Award for commitment to youth mentorship in 2001. Joe was also honored as the Juvenile Diabetes Research Fund Community Leader of the Year in 2005. He is past president and board member of the Fairway Foundation and has contributed time to many other charitable organizations. Currently, Joe is on the PACER Advisory Board and is a member of Minnesota Vikings Advisory Board.

Joe, his wife Laura and their three children live in Bloomington. In their free time, the Schmit family enjoys travel, theatre, and of course sports.

Credits
Annie is presented through special arrangement with Music Theatre International.

This activity funded, in part, by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund as appropriated by the Minnesota State Legislature with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4, 2008.

 

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