Will Rosie O’Donnell Play Miss Hannigan in the Upcoming Broadway Revival of Annie?

Rosie O’Donnell took a meeting to play Miss Hannigan in James Lapine’s upcoming revival of Annie, according to The Daily Beast. O'Donnell, whose OWN talk show The Rosie Show was canceled on March 16 after one season, has frequently expressed interest in the role. She even once played Hannigan opposite (an adult) original Annie star Andrea McArdle in a presentation of the show during a trip on her R Family cruise.  

O’Donnell tweeted to her friend and Tony winner Kristin Chenoweth, a veteran of the 1999 Annie TV remake, about her possible plans to return to Broadway. "That's show biz," O'Donnell said of the show's demise, "and I am happy to have had the chance and now to be back home in [New York] - maybe Broadway!"

O'Donnell has twice served as the host of the Tony Awards. She made her Broadway debut as Rizzo in the first revival of Grease. Her other Main Stem credits include Fiddler on the Roof and Seussical. She appeared off-Broadway in Love, Loss, and What I Wore and produced the Broadway musical Taboo. Her film credits include A League of Their Own, The Flintstones and Sleepless in Seattle. She is best known as the host of the Emmy-winning The Rosie O’Donnell Show as well as for her stint on The View.

Inspired by the famous comic strip Little Orphan Annie, Annie made its Broadway debut on April 21, 1977, transferring three times and playing 2,377 performances before closing on January 2, 1983. The show won the Tony Award for Best Musical, Best Book and Best Original Score, among others. Broadway's original Miss Hannigan, Dorothy Loudon, also won a Tony Award for her work. The show features music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Martin Charnin and a book by Thomas Meehan.

A film adaptation of the musical was released in 1982 and starred Albert Finney, Aileen Quinn, Ann Reinking, Tim Curry, Bernadette Peters and Carol Burnett as Miss Hannigan. The show was filmed in 1999 for television with a cast led by Kathy Bates, Victor Garber, Alan Cumming and Kristin Chenoweth. Annie was last revived in 1997 at the Martin Beck Theatre in a production that starred Nell Carter as Miss Hannigan.

Take a look at O'Donnell's rendition of "Little Girls" from her cruise performance below!