Welcome back to The Island of Misfit Plays, where forgotten plays and musicals are rediscovered and forgotten no more. Broadway flops and vanished greats, plays you might not have heard of, abandoned projects — you name it! It’ll be covered. Today, we’ll be looking at one of the great bizarre flops of (wannabe) Broadway history, Annie 2: Miss Hannigan’s Revenge. 

Yes. This is a thing that happened.

Six years after the closing of the wildly successful Annie, rehearsals began for what was sure to be the best musical sequel of all time (the bar has been set pretty low for that, but those shows are for another day). The creators, mostly composed of the same team behind the original musical, were attempting to create “a real grown-up show”, according to musical author Thomas Meehan. So what did they come up with? Well, here’s one of the songs to explain most of it:

If you still need clarification, or if you need a second confirmation that this is an actual story that real theatre professionals came up with, here it is: Daddy Warbucks discovers that he has to be married to officially adopt Annie…apparently. So he decides to throw a nationwide contest to find his new wife, with Annie and the United Mothers of America head, Mrs. Christmas, helping him to decide. Meanwhile, Miss Hannigan escapes from prison and, hearing about this contest, disguises herself as “Charlotte O’Hara”. She finds a girl that looks identical to Annie and successfully sneaks into the contest. She kidnaps the real Annie and replaces her with the doppelg-Annie-r. It all leads to a convoluted climax of chasing and wrestling and arresting and a “you meddling kids” parallel as we get to a happily-ever-after. So yeah, real “grown up” stuff.

And the cherry on top of this out-of-control sundae?  In the photo above sits Oscar-winner JK Simmons in the original (and only) production as a WABC radio announcer.

Originally, the musical was supposed to be at the Kennedy Center in December and move to Broadway previews in February. Guess what didn’t happen?

That. That did not happen. Over those three months at the Kennedy Center and Goodspeed Opera House, every single page of the 145-page script was changed along with most of the songs (one of the original songs and a guilty pleasure of mine is below), and millions of dollars were lost in advertising. After 36 performances, the show was eventually pulled from its New York date. Over time, Miss Hannigan’s Revenge evolved into the mildly successful Annie Warbucks, which is essentially a less insane variation of the “you-have-to-get-married-ASAP-to-keep-Annie” plotline.

And that’s the grand tragic story of — and I’m going to say this title again because it’s legendary — Annie 2: Miss Hannigan’s Revenge. I hope you all come back to The Island. More great misfit plays are arriving soon!

Hungry for more theatre history? Check out our other stories below!

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• Theatre in Film Series
• 12 Elizabethan and Jacobean Playwrights You Should Know
• 7 Greek and Roman Playwrights You Should Know
• 13 Classic American Playwrights You Should Know
• Diva Alert #1: Ethel Merman
• Diva Alert #2: Mary Martin
• Diva Alert #3: Marilyn Miller
• Diva Alert #4: Gertrude Lawrence