FILM FARE | A guide to what's on screen

The talented cast includes area kids who don't perform at all like children.
By WILLIAM K. ALCORN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
AKRON -- "Their one mistake was giving me up," Little Orphan Annie says about her long-lost parents.
Your one mistake would be missing the Carousel Dinner Theatre's version of the feel-good, rags-to-riches musical fairy tale, a splotch of color set in the dreary backdrop of the Great Depression in New York City.
That "Annie" is a good musical play is not an issue. Based on the 1920s comic strip, "Little Orphan Annie," it opened on Broadway April 21, 1977, and won seven Tony Awards, including best musical, book and score.
The question is, what would Carousel do with such a beloved and familiar vehicle.
Not to worry.
"Annie" is, as Carousel publicity promises, filled with "bright, cheery and inspirational songs such as "It's The Hard-Knock Life," "Tomorrow," "Easy Street," and "You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile."
Cast
"Annie" is also blessed with really talented actors, singers and dancers, including a troupe of youngsters, Annie's orphanage mates, who don't perform at all like children.
Annie (9-year-old Emma Wahl of Pepper Pike) didn't miss a beat or a note, even when the pooch who played her stray dog Sandy wanted an extra treat during the finale of one of her numbers.
As precocious as Emma and the rest of the children are, they didn't steal the show, which speaks to the abilities of the other principals and ensemble.
Erik Nelson as Oliver "Daddy" Warbucks, the impassive millionaire -- no make that billionaire -- who invited an orphan, who turned out to be Annie, to spend two weeks with him at Christmastime, was very good.
He both lost his heart to the little girl and sang his heart out, particularly in duets with Annie and in the solo "Something Was Missing."
Cruella DeVille has nothing on Miss Hannigan (Lisa McMillan), the miserly, hard-drinking female "bad guy" who runs the orphanage. McMillan, seemingly 7 feet tall in her spike heels, towers over her tiny charges. She and co-villains, Rooster (W. Joe Matheson) and Lily St. Regis (Kathy Meyer), are both menacing and comical as they hatch a plan to bilk Warbucks out of the $50,000 reward he has offered to anyone who can prove they are Annie's real parents.
Annie even affects history. One of the best scenes in the play is when Annie's optimism infects FDR (Tom Gamblin) and his Cabinet, resulting in a "new deal" to bring America out of the Depression.
Ensemble
Last, but not least, is the ensemble, with many members playing double and triple roles. Unlike in years past, there appear to be no weak links. Clearly, there has been a conscious effort by Carousel's new owners to upgrade that area of their musical productions.
"Annie" is the story of an optimistic orphan who thinks she is not like other orphans because she has "real" parents for whom she has been waiting 11 years to come and get her.
She wears half of a locket around her neck, and according to a note they left her, they have the other half with which to identify her.
The story, of course, is hopelessly unrealistic, but it is after all a fairy tale, where things are allowed to turn out right.
alcorn@vindy.com