Fifty years after a scrappy little musical about a red-haired orphan first took the stage in East Haddam, Goodspeed Opera House is bringing Annie home. The 50th-anniversary production runs Oct. 30 through Dec. 27, staged in the same riverside theater where the show made its world premiere, and it arrives with a cast led by a 10-year-old discovered through a TikTok video.
Goodspeed's posters bear a seal reading “Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Goodspeed's Greatest Hit,” and the timing lines up precisely: according to Shubert Theatre, Annie made its world premiere on Aug. 10, 1976, at the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam, Connecticut. The new run, as reported by the Hartford Courant, lands in the same 400-seat auditorium at 6 Main St. that first hosted the show — and the Courant's reporting anchors much of what follows about this production's cast, direction, and local roots.
Directing this anniversary staging is Jenn Thompson, who as a child played Pepper in the original Broadway company of Annie, per the Hartford Courant. Thompson went on to run River Rep with her family at Ivoryton Playhouse for two decades and became a regular director at Goodspeed, the paper notes. She also directed a recent national tour of Annie, though the Courant is careful to note this new Goodspeed mounting is a distinct production, featuring new sets and new choreography, including a reworked “Easy Street.”
A TikTok Discovery Lands the Lead Role
The anniversary production's Annie is Laiken Jules, a 10-year-old from California who Thompson found through a TikTok video of her singing “My New Philosophy,” according to the Hartford Courant. Jules was contacted by Goodspeed about the role and then auditioned for Thompson's production before landing the part, the paper reports. She'll turn 11 during the run itself and plays opposite a dog named Scotty, who is 17 months old, as Sandy.
The rest of the 26-person cast includes Emily Skinner as Miss Hannigan, Christopher Swan as Oliver Warbucks, Julia Nicole Hunter as Grace, Rhett Guter as Rooster, and Kelly Berman as Lily, per the Courant's reporting. Separately, Goodspeed's own box-office listing names Sadie Jean Williams as Annie and Abigail Grace as Pepper for certain performances, while the New York Times describes the production as featuring Broadway veteran Skinner alongside Jules, “a young TikToker,” as Annie — a discrepancy in the record that neither account resolves.
The Dog Behind Every Sandy, Including This One
Every Sandy who has ever taken the stage in a professional production of Annie has been trained by Bill Berloni, who began his animal-training career as a Goodspeed intern tasked with finding and training the original dog on a budget of just $35, according to the Connecticut Public report cited by the Courant. Berloni has since trained animals for Legally Blonde the Musical and Curse of the Starving Class, and in 2019 he developed Because of Winn-Dixie at Goodspeed, billed as the first musical to star a dog. Berloni began his animal-training career with the original Sandy.
Thompson, for her part, kept the production's spirit simple. “It needs to be fun,” she said, according to the same Courant account. That ethos echoes the show's origins: Annie's title character first appeared in Harold Gray's comic strip, created in 1924, which ran until it was discontinued in 2010.
A Messy Road to Broadway, Then and Now
Goodspeed's relationship with Annie has never been simple. Before the original production reached Broadway, songs were dropped and added, scenes were rewritten, and the scenery was deemed all wrong, according to a 1996 Hartford Courant retrospective. During that Goodspeed run, Andrea McArdle — originally cast as Pepper — was promoted to the lead role of Annie, replacing Kristen Vigard, the same retrospective reports. The show finally opened on Broadway on April 21, 1977, and ran for 2,377 performances before closing in 1983.
Goodspeed later produced its own anniversary revival of Annie in 1996, staged by the musical's original director, Martin Charnin, and running through Dec. 22 of that year, per the Courant's archival reporting. The theater also helped develop two sequels, Annie 2: Miss Hannigan's Revenge and Annie Warbucks, in the late 1980s and early 1990s; Annie Warbucks was developed through workshops at Goodspeed before opening Off-Broadway in August 1993, according to Music Theatre International.
Broadway Eyes Its Own Anniversary Revival
Annie's 50th anniversary isn't confined to East Haddam. A new Broadway revival is planned for fall 2027, directed by Sam Pinkleton, according to Deadline, timed to mark 50 years since the show's first New York production. The New York Times describes it as the third Broadway revival after stagings in 1997 and 2012. The musical's book is by Thomas Meehan, with music by Charles Strouse and lyrics by Martin Charnin, according to Playbill.
Tickets and Showtimes in East Haddam
Performances at Goodspeed Opera House run Wednesdays at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., Thursdays and Fridays at 7:30 p.m., Saturdays at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., and Sundays at 2 p.m. and 6:30 p.m., per the Hartford Courant's listing. Additional performances are scheduled for Monday, Nov. 23, at 2 p.m. and Tuesday, Dec. 22, at 7:30 p.m. The production is presented through a special arrangement with Music Theatre International, according to Goodspeed's own box office listing.
