Maysville —
Jenna Wallingford used to think being a stage actress would be a snooze.
She changed her mind. The 8-year-old Tollesboro girl bagged the title role in the Maysville Players rendition of the Broadway musical “Annie Jr.” Wednesday through Sunday at the Washington Opera House in Maysville.
“I thought, if I did make it, it would be a little boring because I didn’t know anybody,” said Jenna, the daughter of Kim and Shane Wallingford. “I didn’t know who to talk to. I feel like I’ve made a lot of new friends.”
Jenna beat out 52 other children for the title role. Maysville Players Production Director Mike Thomas calls auditions a “guessing game,” but after meeting Jenna for the first time in June, he could possibly talk for hours about how good an actor and singer she is — with no diva-like arrogance.
“Amazing, incredible, she steals my heart every night in rehearsal,” Thomas said. “... She brings such natural talent to the stage. She’s very talented, but she’s not aware of it.”
Jenna said she “can be a little goofy.” “I like to make new friends,” she said. “I’m a bit of a chit-chatter.”
The Broadway version of “Annie” is set in the Depression-era 1930s and based upon the popular Harold Gray comic strip “Little Orphan Annie,” with music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Martin Charnin and the book by Thomas Meehan. It is the story of Annie’s desire to find her parents (who died), her escape and re-capture from the orphanage where she stayed (she later discovered they died when she was a baby) and her being befriended by tycoon Oliver “Daddy” Warbucks.
The original Broadway production opened in 1977 and ran for nearly six years, setting a record for the Alvin Theatre. Thomas said the difference between the two versions is, the songs were rewritten to accommodate a child’s smaller vocal range.
“Annie Jr.” is Jenna’s first stage play with people she didn’t know at first, but she is not a theatrical newbie; she’s performed in Christmas plays at Tollesboro Christian Church since she was 5, and she sang the national anthem at a Junior League baseball game July 2 in Vanceburg. Mrs. Wallingford was maybe more anxious at first.
“I felt everybody else knew more than we did,” Kim Wallingford said. “I found out this was a first for all the kids.”
Jenna will wear Annie’s trademark red wig. She said the second act was harder to memorize because she performed the first for auditions, and she admits to occasionally being nervous onstage, especially when she has trouble with a longish speech.
“I usually think of what’s the best that could happen,” she said. Thomas doesn’t consider Jenna a diva, but Jenna said she sometimes is with older brothers Seth, 14, and 12-year-old Bryce — she’ll punch them in the arm, but they still help her rehearse. Mrs. Wallingford isn’t worried because her sons are also protective of her.
There’s one other thing Jenna dislikes, of which her mom often reminds her: cleaning. “I’d rather watch TV or play,” Jenna said. “I’d rather go to sleep.”
Local News
Tollesboro girl bags title role in ‘Annie Jr.’
8-year-old beats 52 others for lead in musical
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