This Week on Stage: 'Annie' returns to Broadway

Two Sandys dominated the New York theater scene this week. One was the canine star of the beloved musical Annie, which opened Thursday night to generally mixed reviews (despite a near rave from EW’s Jessica Shaw). The other was the hurricane that disrupted numerous productions last week. The storm even became the unlikely scapegoat for the producers of the Al Pacino-led revival of Glengarry Glen Ross, which pushed back its opening date from Nov. 11 to Dec. 8 despite being in previews since Oct. 9 and canceling only a handful of performances due to Sandy. Here’s our take on recent openings:

Annie The rags-to-riches 1977 musical makes a welcome return to Broadway in a new production starring 11-year-old Lilla Crawford (pictured above, with rescue dog Sunny as Sandy). According to EW’s Jessica Shaw, “This Annie is a love letter to both the city and a musical that’s endured for 35 years.” EW grade: A–

Sorry Like his last two plays, Richard Nelson’s deliberately timely new Off Broadway drama opened on the day on which it’s set: In this case, Election Day 2012. As Melissa Rose Bernardo writes, “The lightning-in-a-bottle nature of the works — particularly Sorry, with its references to Hurricane Sandy and even the approaching nor’easter — imbues them with a thrilling immediacy.” EW grade: A–

Bad Jews Off Broadway regular Tracee Chimoo is “terrific,” Lisa Schwarzbaum writes, in up-and-coming playwright Joshua Harmon’s “lively little comedy of hostility and intrafamily kvetching.” EW grade: B

The Heiress I had nothing but praise for “s crisp, first-rate production,” starring about a wealthy 19th-century physician (David Strathairn) whose plain-Jane daughter (Jessica Chastain) is suddenly wooed by a penniless charmer played by Downton Abbey‘s Dan Stevens. EW grade: A

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