‘Annie Live!’: Coming Soon to Your Living Room
By Laura Zornosa
Dec. 1, 2021
BETHPAGE, N.Y. — From the outside, Gold Coast Studios, a cluster of enormous beige buildings just off the highway in this Long Island hamlet, looks like a nondescript warehouse complex. Step inside, though, and an ersatz New York City full of singing orphans comes to life.
A silver Manhattan skyline fills the background of a brightly lit sound stage, complete with miniature versions of the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building, and a set of elevated train tracks that rise up and stretch out toward seats that will soon be filled with spectators. The Tony Award-winning choreographer Sergio Trujillo (“Ain’t Too Proud,” “Memphis”) instructs a group of ensemble members — a hot dog vendor and a newspaper boy among them — while nearby, an army of crew members rolls four enormous “marble” pillars into place within Oliver Warbucks’s imposing mansion.
