IDAHO FALLS — The Idaho Falls Youth Arts Centre is preparing to put on its fall production this week for the community.
“Annie the Musical” will run from Nov. 15 to Nov. 20 (specific dates and times can be found here). The show will take place at the Frontier Center for the Performing Arts at 501 South Holmes Avenue in Idaho Falls.
“‘Annie’ is a story of an orphan named Annie who grew up in an orphanage,” Mike Belgard, the show’s director, explained. “The orphanage is run by a very mean taskmaster of a mistress named Miss Hannigan.”
He said Annie decides she’s going to run away from the orphanage and find her parents. In the process, she ends up being picked to stay with billionaire Oliver Warbucks, a man who decides to adopt an orphan for a few weeks for Christmas for publicity.
“I think a lot more people know the movie from the 80s than they are familiar with the show, but the play came first,” Belgard mentioned. “‘Annie’ was actually based upon a comic strip — ‘Little Orphan Annie’ — clear back from the 20s.”
Belgard said in his past experiences when he’s watched this production be performed by other casts the character’s “stereotypical looks” are embraced.
“The way I see it without being critical of anybody else is they embrace the fact that she’s a comic book character,” Belgard stated. “I said (for our production) let’s take the comic book out and let’s make these people as real people as they can be. This is a girl living in the 30s in New York without any parents — what is that really like?”
He added, “From the beginning, I said I want to focus on who these people really are, what their life experience has been, what their backstory is and how they interact with each other.”
Rehearsals for the show got underway in late summer. There’s a total of 82 people who will appear on stage at some point during the show. Of that number, almost 50 are children.
“We have a lot of parents and kids in the show together which is fun,” Belgard said. “I have a lot of people who this is their first show and I’ve got a lot of people who this is the next show. … It’s a lot of fun to see them grow and take on their characters.”
Belgard, who noted this is his first time directing a “big musical” with a live orchestra, encourages community members to attend the production and see the local talent.
“I think it’s going to be a great show, a lot of fun and I hope the audience sees something in the show they haven’t seen before or sees it from a new point of view,” he mentioned. “I want people to walk away from this feeling that there’s hope for tomorrow and it’s not beyond reason to expect it.”
Tickets are $18 and are available to purchase at the door or online by clicking here.
A shorter version of the show — which is being put on for family members, friends, children from local school districts, students at charter schools and those who are homeschooled — will be shown Nov. 15 from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. Tickets to the shorter show are $3 a ticket and are available at the door.
