By Marilyn Jozwik
Forte Theatre Company just keeps cranking out big, crowd-pleasing, professional-quality musicals season after season.
Opening its 2026-27 season, Forte, under the direction of Randall Dodge, brings the ever-popular, ever-optimistic “Annie” to the sweeping Saber Center stage at Franklin High School.
The massive theatrical canvas enhances this rangy production, allowing performers lots of room to roam in numbers like “Hard Knock Life,” with the orphans scrubbing floors in their bunk-bedded dormitory, or the hustle and bustle of the Big Apple in “NYC.” But it is especially effective when the scenes turn to Oliver Warbucks’ opulent mansion, where the billionaire and his smartly-attired hired help and others go about the business of entertaining in the richly appointed, massive expanse.
And entertain they do! Forte has assembled some of the finest local talent for this production, including lots of veteran performers, as well as a passel of lively youngsters headed by the Arya Eden as Annie.
The girls at the orphanage get playful as they describe their lot in “Hard Knock Life” in a scene from Forte Theatre Company’s “Annie.” Photo by Mark Frohna
The story is a familiar one. “Annie,” based on the 1924 comic strip “Little Orphan Annie,” was written by Thomas Meehan during the Vietnam War era. Meehan sets his story in 1933 New York City, in the midst of The Great Depression. Its orphans are remindful of Dickens’ characters in “Oliver Twist” and “David Copperfield.”
In “Annie,” we see Annie in the orphanage with 10 roommates, all bullied by the child-hating Miss Hannigan (Lydia Rose Eiche). Annie is determined to find her parents, who left her at the orphanage when she was a baby, 11 years earlier. She escapes from the orphanage, but is returned by Officer Ward (Michael Trimboli, with a nicely done Irish brogue) who finds her in a Hooverville slum, composed of residents impoverished by nation’s economic woes.
Miss Hannigan (Lydia Rose Eiche), her brother Rooster (JT Walker) and his wife Lily (Samantha Knapp) celebrate their get-rich plot as they dance to “East Street” in a scene from Forte Theatre Company’s “Annie.” Photo by Mark Frohna
Annie’s fortune changes when Grace (Hope Riesterer), an assistant of billionaire Warbucks, comes looking for an orphan to spend Christmas at Warbucks’ expansive mansion. Annie is chosen and life looks good until the unscrupulous Rooster (JT Walker) and his wife Lily (Samantha Knapp) claim to be her parents in order to claim the huge check Warbucks is offering to find them.
It is a Christmas like no other for Annie, in which Warbucks calls in favors from high places – including the White House – to make sure it’s a happy one for this special little girl.
Eden’s Annie has a nice blend of little girl sweetness, spunky street smarts and childlike wonder to make her a most appealing character. She handles the optimist’s anthem “Tomorrow” with pitch-perfect sincerity.
Grace (Hope Riesterer), Oliver Warbucks (Shawn Holmes) and Annie (Arya Eden) as well as Warbucks staff and girls from the orphanage celebrate during “New Deal for Christmas” in a scene from Forte Theatre Company’s “Annie.” Photo by Mark Frohna
Shawn Holmes gives Warbucks a big, boisterous personality, yet delivers a most tender “I Don’t Need Anything but You” as he realizes that all his wealth means nothing without someone to love. His voice is silky smooth, whether navigating soaring high notes or luscious lows. A truly memorable performance.
But it is Eiche’s Miss Hannigan who really brings the house down. From the moment she barges into the orphans’ room, terrorizing the girls with threats and anger in a grating Brooklyn accent, she epitomizes the kind of cruelty reminiscent of Fagin and Sikes in Dickens’ “Oliver Twist.” In “Little Girls” she belts out her disdain for her charges, ending with a definitive snarl. I also loved the “East Street” scene with Hannigan and her brother Rooster (Walker) and his wife Lily (Knapp), a really enjoyable song-and-dance number. As Rooster, Walker has the agility of a cat and the smarminess of a used car salesman. Great fun to watch.
Riesterer as Grace, Warbucks’ assistant, is also nicely done, as were all of the smaller roles including Ryan Jay’s charming “Fully Dressed,” William Molitor’s as President Roosevelt and Jon Eiche’s as the head butler, Drake.
I loved the look of the maids in their green outfits and male servants in green vests and the snazzy outfits for the NYC scene, which helped make the vibrant, professional-quality dance numbers so much more enjoyable.
While I usually prefer a live orchestra, the sound system here is so sophisticated it’s hard to tell the difference.
One small note, which didn’t’ affect the performance: the biographies of a couple of major characters were omitted from the program. Perhaps a sheet inserted in the program could have included that info.
Nonetheless, this is a top-notch rendition of one of musical theater’s timeless classics.
If you go:
Who: Forte Theatre Company
What: “Annie”
When: Through Oct. 11
Where: Saber Center for the Performing Arts, 8222 S. 51st Street, Franklin
Info/Tickets: ForteTheatreCompany.org/414-366-3634