Musical moppets: kids onstage - New York, New York production of musical 'Annie Warbucks'

Dance Magazine, Jan, 1994 by Terry Trucco

It's 6:45 on a rainy autumn evening, and Kathryn Zaremba has just reported for work. She scampers up a staircase to the balcony of New York's Variety Arts Theatre and perches restlessly on the arm of a chair. For the mement, with her purple sweatsuit, mouthful of chewing gum, and impish grin, she looks exactly like what she is--a bright-eyed, just-turned-ten-year-old who likes dogs, cartoons, and Michael Jackson.

But within minutes a haridresser yells up from the stage, and Kathryn dashes off. When she next appears, promptly at eight, in her trademark red dress and dyed-red curls, she's Annie Warbucks, star and namesake of New York's hottest off-Broadway musical. Center stage for much of the two-hour show, Kathryn looks as if there's no place she'd rather be. She sings with the heft of Bette Midler, dances with the enthusiasm of Liza Minnelli, and sparkles like Shirley Temple. And she knows precisely how to zero in on the heartstrings. When the first act closes, leaving Kathryn's tiny Annie alone in a railroad yard, there's hardly a dry eye in the audience.

"She like a force of nature," murmured a man seated nect to me at thge show. The critics agreed, deeming Kathryn Zaremba "a giant in the talent department" (the New York Times) and "an infant phenomenon" (the New Yorker). Martin Charnin, the show's diector and lyricist, summed up performing abilities in a single word: "frightening."

All this has made Kathryn, who stands four feet tall and weighs forty-seven pounds. the kid of the moment, the toast of the New York theater world. In fact, the last kid to kick up this kind of excitement was probably Andrea McArdle, who created the title role in the original production of Annie back in 1977. Besides its legacy as one of the most successful musicals in Broadway history--it ran for 2,377 performances, won seven Tony Awards, and earned a profit of between $20 and $30 million--Annie has become the preferred starter show for scores of baby belters, from film actress Sarah Jessica Parker, one of the four Broadway Annies, to countless stage-struck preteens in community theaters. Small wonder a sequel has been in the works since 1983.

But Anne Warbucks is not the only juicy role this season for the under-fifteen set. The show, which continues the Depression-era adventures of the plucky comic-strip orphan who is adopted by the richest, and baldest, man in America, features a full house of moppets--six in all--who sing, emote, and, when called for, bump and grind. Kids also play prominent roles in several current Broadway shows, including Tommy, Les Miserables, and Miss Saigon. And if the new musical version of Paper Moon, based on the 1973 Tatum O'Neal film, finally makes it to Broadway, some precocious talent could find herself giving interviews, posing for mazine covers and signing autographs at F.A.O. Schwarz, just Kathryn Zaremba.

Acting is one of the few professions open to children, and though kids with nerve and ambition may be eager to strut their stuff, many adults still quake at the notion of show-biz kids. Grown-ups, after all, tend to think of disrupted school days, missed Scout meetings, and Hollywood horror stories about all those youthful performers, from July Garland to Jay North, whose early careers seemed to scar them for life. Mama Rose may come to mind--hardly an inspiration for prospective stage parents. Being a child star is also no guarantee of an adult acting career; for every Jodie Foster, there's a Brooke Shields. And rejection, at least some of the time, is the cold reality for any kind on the audition circuit. Nearly a thousand little girls tried out for the seven roles in the current production of Annie Warbucks. Not every eleven-year-old is as thick-skinned as a congressional candidate.

Still, talk to the Annie Warbucks kids, and you'll learn there's nothing as much fun as playing to a live audience five nights and three afternoons a week. "If they gave me a week off, I'd be restless," says Missy Goldberg, a self-assured twelve-year-old who plays Pepper, a mischievous orphan. "I worked on Rosh Hashanah." Tiny Jackie Angelescu, a lively ten-year-old who plays C. G. Paterson, is even more succinct. "I love being out there," she says, pointing to the stage. "I like having people see me and clap."

Talk to the mothers, who accompany their daughters to each performance, and you'll hear pride with a touch of bemusement: They're thrilled that their daughters are on a big New York stage even if they still can't quite believe it. Talk a bit more, however, and you'll learn just how disruptive having a kid in an off-Broadway show can be for a family. It can mean giving up a job, as most of the Annie Warbucks mothers have, to ferry a child to an from the theater for each performance. (Several moms work as ushers, since they don't get complimentary seats for each performance.)

if can mean a forty-five-minute commute each way from Brooklyn of New Jersey, longer when the traffic's bad, or a move to New York from another state. It can mean drafting grandparents to stay homw with the other children or bringing younger kids to the show every night. It usually means tutors or transferring the kid with the budding career to a professional children's school, which can be expensive,