‘Annie’ checks into sweet at UNLV’s Judy Bayley Theatre

Friday, Dec. 17, 2004 | 8:46 a.m.

The musical "Annie" should carry a warning label: diabetics beware.

Annie, the title character, is sweet.

The children who live in the orphanage with Annie are sweet.

Even mean old Miss Hannigan (played by Sally Struthers) is sweet.

And the villains who conspire with Miss Hannigan to rip off Daddy Warbucks? Sweet.

If you have a sweet tooth, it isn't too late to catch this saccharine production by the Nevada Conservatory Theatre at UNLV. It continues through Monday.

"Annie," based on Harold Gray's comic strip "Little Orphan Annie," was a smash on Broadway, where it opened in 1977 and continued for 2,377 performances.

Many parents take their children to see "Annie," which is filled with cute little girls who are enchanting as they sing and dance in the midst of a world on the verge of imploding.

Most of the younger fans probably are ignorant of many elements in the story -- how many 10-year-olds can relate to the Great Depression? Which of them know anything about Herbert Hoover or about the "Hooverville" shantytowns or even Franklin D. Roosevelt?

While the play and the characters in the play may be too much for the fructose intolerant, the cast of actors is superb -- from Struthers to the tiniest of the orphans.

It is especially fun to watch the youngest actors, all of whom seem perfectly at home onstage and are as good as any professional. They include Elizabeth Charles, Taryn Earl, Shannon Henley, Arianne Mediana, Sara Mendenhall, Alicia Powers, Elle Smith and Nikki Testa.

The lead is played by 15-year-old Brittany Maloney, a sophomore at the Las Vegas Academy, who turns in a strong performance.

She heads a cast that is a mix of professional actors performing alongside high school and college students and faculty members.

It is difficult to tell the pros from the amateurs in this production, which was directed by UNLV professor Glen Casale.

Casale, who also directed "Peter Pan" starring Cathy Rigby earlier this year, manages to get the best performances possible out of his cast, which includes equity actors Struthers and Phil Hubbard (as Warbucks).

Jack Gaughan is the guest musical director with scenery by guest artist Xu Zheng. UNLV dance instructor Richard Havey choreographs the production, with costumes by third-year graduate student Bernadette Vallejos-Michaels, lighting by Ben Elliot and sound design by Mark Ohran.

The story takes place in New York City in December 1933 during the Depression. It is driven by poverty, child abandonment, abuse, greed and crime -- great subjects for a light-hearted musical. Perhaps that is why there is so much sugar, to offset the sourness of the world in which it is set.

Annie has been a resident of the New York City Municipal Orphanage (run by Miss Hannigan) for 11 years. She was abandoned by her parents, but clings to the hope that they will return to reclaim her.

She is invited to the home of billionaire Oliver Warbucks for the holidays. Warbucks becomes smitten with the spunky Annie and wants to adopt her, but she doesn't want to be adopted because she knows her parents will come back one day.

Warbucks offers a reward to find Annie's parents. Miss Hannigan gets her brother and his girlfriend to pose as the parents to collect the reward.

I don't want to spoil the ending. But it is sweet.