Somerville High School presents ‘Annie’
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Rehearsing for the upcoming Somerville High school musical Annie just before Christmas are sophomore Nickolas Eliadis as Oliver Warbucks and senior Brianna Xavier as his assistant Grace. ~Photo by Elizabeth Sheeran

By Elizabeth Sheeran

What’s in your heart matters more than what’s in your bank account. That’s a fitting sentiment for the holiday season. But it’s also the message at the core of this winter’s Somerville High School musical, Annie.

Based on the classic comic strip popularized in the 1920s and 1930s, the musical tells the tale of poor orphan Annie, who manages to score an invitation to spend the Christmas holidays with wealthy tycoon Oliver Warbucks. Annie’s sunny optimism prevails over her hard-luck existence in a hard-luck era. In the end, she helps Warbucks as much as he helps her.

“It teaches you the greatest gift is human connection,” Stage Director Sarajane Mullins Pompeo said. “It’s an entire play focused on people who don’t have anything and their attitude towards life, and then there’s the people who do have a lot (like Warbucks) whose attitude isn’t improved because of that, because they’re still yearning for a human connection.”

Mullins Pompeo said she and Co-director Richard Romanoff chose Annie this year in part because there was some history for the students to connect with in the Depression-era setting and references to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal. The directors were also looking for an opportunity to once again bring younger students into the cast, as they did with last year’s Wizard of Oz.

Along with two-dozen high school students onstage and just as many more working behind the scenes, the musical will feature more than 30 local third-, fourth- and fifth-graders representing every one of Somerville’s public elementary schools who will be performing as Annie’s fellow orphans.

“We try to pick shows that are a good fit for the abilities of our students and for the community,” she said, “something that people want to come see, something they feel like the high schoolers are still learning from, yet where we can still include the younger children and have some fun with it.”

Annie’s score is chock-full of some of the more recognizable musical numbers from the contemporary Broadway songbook, including Hard-Knock Life, N.Y.C., You’re Never Fully Dressed without a Smile, Easy Street, Maybe and, of course, Tomorrow. Mullins Pompeo said the SHS production will feature some contemporary twists in the staging and choreography.

The musical will be presented at the Somerville Theater in Davis Square, since the high school auditorium remains out of commission while the city wrangles with insurance claims over damage from Hurricane Sandy last year.

Romanoff said the partnership with the Somerville Theater has turned out to be a win-win.

“They were pleased to host us again this year because it benefitted everybody last year, in terms of all types of people coming into the theater,” he said. “We had a sold-out house for at least one show.”

But both directors said it can sometimes take Annie-style attitude to deal with the challenges of not having the auditorium for rehearsals.

“We all have to be optimistic in this space,” Mullins Pompeo said. “We’re packing in 33 elementary kids and close to 40 high school students in a small room with one piano, but the kids just kind of roll with it.”

SHS junior Tara Jean-Baptiste, who plays orphan matron and Annie’s nemesis Miss Hannigan, said there’s plenty for today’s teens to identify with in Annie’s story, especially her quest to find a home.

“Annie trying to find out who her parents are connected with me as a teenager trying to find out who I am as a person, trying to find out where I belong and what I belong to,” she said.

And she said Annie’s timeless message that “the sun will come out tomorrow” is something everyone can relate to, especially at the coldest, darkest time of the year.

“It’s a good message: that it may be hard today, or next week or next month or next year, but eventually it will get better for you,” she said.

Somerville High School will present Annie, with music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Martin Charnin and book by Thomas Meehan at the Somerville Theater in Davis Square at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 6 and Friday, Feb. 7, with a 2 p.m. matinee Saturday, Feb. 8.