SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, May 8, 2024 (Gephardt Daily) — University of Utah alum Stefanie Londino has performed the role of Miss Hannigan in the current and previous North American tour of “Annie” some 430 times, she told Gephardt Daily over the phone from a tour stop in Michigan Monday.
Londino has racked up quite the list of credits after graduating from the renowned U of U Actor Training Program BFA. This is her fourth national tour after playing Rosina in “A Bronx Tale” and Shaindel in “Fiddler on the Roof.” Her Off-Broadway credits include “Whiskeypants: The Mayor of Williamsburg,” “What Do Critics Know?” “Flak House,” and “Red Wine in Paper Cups” as well as numerous other regional productions. Utah audiences may also remember her appearances in “Too Much Memory” and “Masterclass” at Salt Lake Acting Company and in “Romeo and Juliet” and “Dial ‘M’ For Murder” at Pioneer Theatre Company. Londino, who is now based in New York, also fronts the band West Side Waltz with her husband and sings with The Voxies, a Caribbean-style rock band that has opened for Bon Jovi.
Later this month, this current tour of “Annie” will conclude in Portland, Oregon. After Kalamazoo, Michigan, the cast traveled to Green Bay, Wisconsin, for one night, then will be at the Eccles Theater in downtown Salt Lake City for just five shows this weekend. There will be performances on Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. with a Saturday matinee at 2 p.m. and shows on Sunday at 1 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. For tickets, click here.
“Annie” features an iconic book and score written by Tony Award® winners Thomas Meehan, Charles Strouse, and Martin Charnin. The show tells the tale of the plucky 11-year-old orphan Annie, and her journey from Miss Hannigan’s dingy orphanage to Oliver “Daddy” Warbucks’ mansion with her rescue dog Sandy at her side. The score includes familiar favorites including “Maybe,” “It’s the Hard Knock Life,” “Little Girls,” “Easy Street,” and “Tomorrow.” This celebration of family, optimism and the American spirit remains the ultimate cure for all the hard knocks life throws your way. This iteration of the timeless musical is directed by Jenn Thompson, who appeared as bossy orphan Pepper in the original Broadway run of the show.
We asked Londino how her time at the U of U prepared her for her busy professional career.
“I’m a proud ATP grad and I had a beautiful experience there,” Londino said. “It was a really extraordinary program, especially when I was there. Sarah Shippobotham was running the program and she was extraordinary. I went to the U because of her and Jerry Gardner, because I was a Jersey girl born and raised. So that was a big leap for me at the time; I was 2,000 miles away from home and anyone I’d ever met. And the story of how I got there is I was at a Unified Audition in New York City, for Penn State Carnegie Mellon. I really wanted to go to Pittsburgh to Carnegie Mellon to study, and I was there auditioning for them. A lot of different schools show up in the same place at a hotel and audition students on the same day and we were leaving, my mother and I, and she saw University of Utah on the door and she said: ‘Oh, I used to live in Utah.’ And we poked our heads in and they weren’t with anybody. We ended up saying hello and they invited us in, and asked would I like to do my monologue, which I did, and they offered me an audition and a $1,000 talent scholarship on the spot.
“Then I ended up applying and got a full ride, a full scholarship, so it ended up being a choice between going to Carnegie Mellon and spending $60 grand a year to study there; they would’ve given some scholarship money but it wouldn’t have been free, or going to Utah, which was at the time was ranked the 13th best program in the country, and go there for free. So that’s the story of a Jersey girl in Utah, that was a good experience all around.”
On Friday, May 10, Londino is taking part in a meet and greet with some of the U of U’s ATP students. This will take place in the Performing Arts Building at 240 S. 1500 East, room 115, at 11:30 a.m. if current or former students would like to attend.
“So anyone who’s interested, I’m happy to meet anybody,” Londino said. “I’m excited to see what the program’s like now and what the students are like now because when I was there it was a conservatory-style program within the framework of a traditional liberal arts degree BFA, which meant it was incredibly rigorous and exhaustive, which I think was a good, positive experience. And intense, rather intense.”
Londino also told us more about her extensive journey with “Annie.”
“So I’ve been with the tour since its inception, we began rehearsals in August of 2022, and this is the second season of my two seasons of ‘Annie’ on tour, in this iteration,” she said. “So I auditioned for the show back in March of 2022. And I had an offer within a couple of weeks, well before they put together the rest of the company. And definitely before they found the kids because they try to find the kids as late as possible so they catch them before their growth spurt. So the offer came in March or April, we started rehearsal in August, hit the road in September of 2022. We did 10 months; 227 shows the first year, had the summer off, came back in September, then reopened in October of 2023. And we are about to hit 217 shows this year. So I’m over 400; I think last night was 429.”
We asked her what it’s like to tour with a company that includes young actors playing Annie and the orphans, as well as two dogs, Wheaten Terrier mix Seamus, who stars as the iconic sidekick Sandy, and labradoodle Kevin, who is Seamus’ understudy, in case he needs a rest.
“There’s the famous W.C. Fields quote that says never work with dogs and children and I just think he could not have been more mistaken, they’re the best co-workers to have,” she said. “These kids are indefatigable. They are just a source of endless joy. They do the eight shows a week just like the all the adults and they do school during the daytime on top of that, and they are happy as clams to be there and it really helps keep it all in perspective, you know, especially when you’re in a multi-city split-week bus-into-show crazy. We haven’t had to do too much of that on this tour, fortunately it was a pretty good schedule, but even in those tough times those kids and those dogs are just happy to be there, happy to part of the experience, so I feel so grateful to work with them. I call the kids my chickens and I just enjoy them.”
We also asked her what she loves about the character of Miss Hannigan.
“Well certainly as a part, it’s very rare in this career that you get to play parts that pass the Bechdel Test [a test to measure the representation of women in film and other fiction],” Londino said. “In fact, in my entire professional career, it’s the first part I’ve ever played that does, which is extraordinary. And especially in the musical theater canon, and especially the Golden Age of musical theater canon, you know, the show came out in ’77, which is obviously just close to the Golden Age, I feel like the irony of it too. She didn’t marry in a time period of the ’30s when that would’ve been extraordinarily rare. She was a working woman, which again, would’ve been fairly rare for someone not to just get married and do that. And she’s totally miserable, which is unfortunate. She’s trapped in that dead-end government job, a job that she obviously hates, and there’s no mobility, there’s no mobility for anyone, but certainly not for a woman of that age. From a character perspective, she’s legendary.”
We also asked Londino what her plans are after this current tour wraps up.
“Well, we’ve got two weeks left on season two, and I am very, very much looking forward to going home to New York, getting some rest,” she said. “And continuing to ride the rollercoaster.” She said she and her band West Side Waltz may also embark on a mini-tour this summer.
Londino added at the end of our call that she loves Salt Lake City and is so glad to come back to visit. “I cannot wait to come back, I love Salt Lake so, so much, I always say it took me probably five years after I moved back east to New York after I graduated to get used to not having the mountains around me, so I’m so thrilled and so excited,” she said. “Some of my favorite places are still there, I’m very excited for Mexican food at the Red Iguana; but it’s totally blossoming, I’m so excited to see the city again.”
For more information about the “Annie” tour and for tickets, click here. For more information on Stefanie Londino, click here.
