Joplin — Though 12-year-old Carolyn Billingsley, pictured, has performed the role of Tessie –fellow orphan to the famous musical’s lead, the young actress with seven major productions to her name will finally get to play the part she’s always wanted to most.
Billingsley will don a red wig and dress and on Friday, Feb. 3, 2012, join a cast of more than 40 actors for Springfield Little Theatre’s new staging of “Annie,” the 1977 Broadway hit, returning to the historic Landers Theater after about a decade.
“Carolyn is fantastic,” says actor Doug Cannon who will be reprising his role as Daddy Warbucks in Annie’s fourth return to the Landers stage. “She is an incredible little trouper. She knows all her lines. She knows all my lines. She knows everybody’s lines. She’s the best.” Billingsley has been performing in theater since age 7. Inspired while attending a summer acting camp at the Joplin Performing Arts Center, her first role was in Charlotte’s Web at Joplin’s Stained Glass Theater.
Since then, Billingsley has performed in several musicals including The King and I and Cats for the Springfield Little Theatre. In 2010, under the direction of Dr. Robert Bradley –retired MSU theatre and dance department head, she tackled the lead role of heroine Mary Lennox in Springfield Contemporary Theatre’s The Secret Garden.
A former student of St. Mary’s Elementary School in Joplin, in May 2011--just days after the Joplin tornado--Billingsley joined forces with several Springfield/Branson-area entertainment veterans to lend her talent to relief efforts in Joplin. The benefit jazz concert held at the Brentwood Christian Church in Springfield raised over $6,000 for Joplin relief. It featured singers and musicians performing beneath a projected image of the now iconic cross of St. Mary’s Catholic Church that withstood the tornado, continuing to mark the location where the church and elementary school once stood.
Annie, directed and choreographed by Lorriane Dunn with musical direction by Susan Gravatt, is the story of a plucky orphan who works her way into the heart of multi-billionaire Daddy Warbucks in the depths of the Great Depression. Performances will be at the Landers Theatre, 311 E. Walnut, opening Friday, Feb.3, at 7:30 p.m. and continuing Wednesdays through Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2:30 p.m. through February 19, 2012. Performances also will take place on two Saturday matinees on February 11 and 18 at 2:30 p.m.
For tickets call the Landers box office at (417) 869-1334 or visit here.
See Billingsley posing during a dress rehearsal here. Go Back | 
