We Saw Annie!

When you wake, ring for Drake, Drake will bring your tray

When your through, Mrs. Pugh, comes to take it away. . .

We saw Annie. We saw Annie. Sorry, I am writing this while the songs of the Broadway musical Annie are meshed together with scenes from the movie. I am a little bit on Annie overload.

Who knew that when I bought a copy of the movie Annie at Target for five bucks a few months ago that not only would the Ladies have watched it over 100 times (moderate estimate--it could be 200) but that we would get the opportunity to see the play on Broadway.

I am not sure who was more excited, me or the Ladies. I have vivid memories of listening to the record when I was little at my best friend Mare's house. So clearly, we couldn't have gone with anyone else but her and her daughter. OMG so exciting!!!!!!

It was a 6:30 performance so I was actually quite pleased that the Little Lady passed out in the car on the way to my parents and ended up sleeping for over an hour or so, I didn't want her falling asleep on my lap and missing it. The Lady had woken up that morning worrying that she might fall asleep during the performance, she too passed out in the car on the way into the city, so I was left with two moderately well-rested children who were ready for the bright lights, big city and a musical where they would know 95% of the songs.

I am going to glaze over the part where the Little Lady threw a fit about not going in Minnie-Ru and just say that I am glad she got her temper tantrum out before we hit Manhattan.


The Ladies in Duffy Square before the show

 When we finally got into N.Y.C. (yes, I am singing the song N.Y.C. from the musical under my breath as I type this) the Little Lady couldn't have been more excited. She held my hand and kept saying over and over "we're going to Annie, we're going to Annie." She couldn't understand why we weren't going directly into the theatre, but since we arrived over an hour before the play started we tried to distract them with some of the sites of Times Square.

I never knew how many people were out there trying to make a living wearing knock-off Mickey Mouse and Elmo costumes. We looked, but no photos. I am not paying some random five bucks to take a picture with my kid in some half-assed non-licensed Hello Kitty outfit, so we settled for the next best thing and took them into the Disney Store. This worked out well for about 10 minutes until everyone decided they were hungry/thirsty/in dire need of seeing Annie.

Can I just say that there are some days where I look at my children and think "how can these little creatures possibly be mine?" then we roll up in NYC and the Lady wants nothing but a giant hot pretzel and I think "oh yeah, that kid belongs to me."

We made one last stop for a couple of snacks and headed toward the theatre. We got on line early enough that we were able to wait inside. Once the line started moving we were in pretty quickly. Mare made the very good suggestion that we try to hit the bathroom before we went to our seats.

There is nothing like being in a standard-sized public restroom with your two children. Space is limited, things are touched that shouldn't be, and to top it off, I have a slightly uncomfortable wig on that I could see falling directly into the toilet in my attempt to help the Ladies maneuver their way around the stall.

We left the bathroom, grabbed three red risers from the back and headed towards our seats. Both of my girls wanted to sit next to MM so it was me on the aisle, the Little Lady, MM, The Lady and Mare. The girls immediately wanted to eat their snacks and I shoved multiple wrappers of whatever candy they had chosen along with 10 inserts announcing cast changes from the Playbill into my bag.

The Little Lady wanted to know if Punjab would be in the play. Alas, he was not.

Finally the music started.

Can I just say that this Annie had a very aggressive New York accent? So much so, it was kind of distracting. I am all for a well placed "dawg" and I admire the grit and spunkiness of Annie as a character, but it was almost too much. The worst part was that it didn't leave while she was singing, which I felt removed a bit of tenderness from some of the more poignant moments including Maybe, the Lady's favorite song.

Anyway, I got to almost the end of the first act before the Little Lady started to lose her patience. She kept on asking me questions like "why aren't there more orphans?" "where is the helicopter?" and my personal favorite "why is Annie's face so white?" She also started sliding down her riser, kicking her feet against the chair in front of her, which caused her light-up sparkle shoes to give off a bit of a glow, and announce to me on multiple occasions that she had farted. Mrs. Pugh indeed.

By the end of the first act, she was bent over backwards on my lap with her hands touching the floor of the aisle. I was at that point kind of regretting that she had fallen asleep earlier in the day.

Thank goodness for the intermission.

The older girls had a great time. I was so pleased to see the Lady clapping and laughing and singing along. I was so glad to share something with all of them that had been so important to me.

We ended the evening by buying a CD of the original cast recording of the musical. More Annie! More Annie!

The Little Lady after the show






The Lady after the show



The ride home

All the girls fell asleep on the ride home. Yes, the Lady is sleeping in the photo above, she sleeps with her eyes half open, which is a little scary and can be directly attributed to her father. The Little Lady had just opened her eyes because I was trying to take a photo of their peaceful little faces and the flash momentarily blinded her. Clearly, she wasn't too happy.

The Ladies, of course, woke up once we got back to my parents and moved into Minnie-Ru for the ride back to Connecticut. What did we watch in the van you ask? Why Annie, and they proceeded to spend the next 25 minutes comparing the Broadway version to the movie. QT would have been very disappointed that the play doesn't include the song Sandy. He is a sucker for a dog-dog, or in the case of the very talented, but perhaps overly aggressive-accent of Annie, "dawg-dawg."