Annie Playbill Autographed by Andrea McArdle 1977 Alvin Theatre

In 1977, I was ten, and watching television in Maine. One of the morning television shows had the cast of some play on, and I half-watched and half-did whatever ten year old me was doing. The play was called Annie, and it has kids in it, and the Mike Douglas Show (or whoever it was I was watching) said it's great.

Fast forward to later that year and I'm in New York City with my mom and my older sister, who lived in the Big Apple. She wants to take us to a Broadway Show and is suggesting shows to my mother, and I chimed in with the one Broadway Show I'd ever heard of, Annie. We went.

I developed the absolute hugest crush on Annie, played by Andrea McArdle. The play was amazing, I bought ALL the souvenirs, I floated out of the Alvin Theatre on a cloud.

My sister was much older than I and already a savvy New Yorker and said that if we stand outside the stage door we might meet some of the cast. My mother had seen Lucille Ball years before coming out of a play, and I think that's why she was willing to put up with my idiocy, so we waited and sure enough, the cast came out and we commended Dorothy Loudon for her amazing job as Miss Hannigan, and then finally my lady love came out.

Googling her now, I see that she was just a couple of years older than I was but I was star-struck and speechless.  I had two copies of Playbill, and I somehow communicated enough to get her to sign this one, and also the other one along with a couple of her castmates (I'll scan that one and post it soon).

I should also mention that later that year I went to New York for Thanksgiving with my mother and my sister took us down to the street to watch the Macy Day Parade. I was stunned to find out that Andrea McArdle was featured on a float! I want to say that she was the Grand Marshal or something, but that could have just been ten year old me making up stuff. I do probably have a blurry picture or two of it I'll dig around for.

Fast forward a decade or so, and I have a friend who is a drama director at a high school and she is obsessed with the play Starlight Express. I didn't know anything about the play, but was extremely amused to learn that none other than Andrea McArdle had a big role in it!

Googling her just now to write this, she's still acting and singing and probably being amazing somewhere right this minute, and has played at the Ogunquit Playhouse which is not far from me. Maybe someday I'll see her on stage again and bring this whole thing full circle!