Claire Sweeney’s gin-guzzling Miss Hannigan in Nikolai Foster’s touring production of Annie. Picture: Paul Coltas
CORONATION Street and Brookside star Claire Sweeny will star as bitter, gin-drinking, child-hating New York City orphanage matron Miss Hannigan in Annie at the Grand Opera House, York, from January 12 to 16 2027.
Tickets will go on sale at atgtickets.com/york on Wednesday, September 2 at 10am for ATG members and 12 noon for general sales.
Sweeney last appeared at the Grand Opera House in April 2015, leading the cast as a relationship expert in Sex In Suburbia, an uplifting, revealing and raunchy comedy about dating disasters that she co-wrote with Mandy Muden.
Claire Sweeney, centre, in her last appearance at the Grand Opera House in Sex In Suburbia in 2015
In October 2010, she starred in a re-worked version of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Don Black’s song cycle Tell Me On A Sunday, charting the romantic misadventures of a young English girl newly arrived in New York.
Next January, Claire arrives in old York in Michael Harrison and David Ian’s tour of Charles Strouse, Martin Charnin and Thomas Meehan’s musical, set in 1930s’ New York in the mire of The Great Depression, where brave young Annie is forced to live a life of misery and torment at Miss Hannigan’s orphanage.
Her luck changes, however, when she is chosen to spend a fairytale Christmas with famous billionaire Oliver Warbucks. Meanwhile, spiteful Miss Hannigan has other ideas and hatches a plan to spoil Annie’s search for her true family.
Claire Sweeney’s Miss Hannigan on the orphanage rampage in Annie. Picture: Paul Coltas
Sweeney, 55, will be joined by Alex Bourne as Oliver Warbucks, Tanisha-Mae Brown as Grace Farrell, Christian Cooper as Rooster and Amber Kennedy as Lily St Regis.
In the company too will be Jack Buchanan, Harrison Burley, Zoë Canham, Sophie Elmes, Belle Kizzy Green, Issy Khogali, Yujin Park, Elliot David Parkes, Carl Sanderson, Michaela Stern, Matthew Sweet and Jessica Wright.
Victoria Alsina, Sophia Saravanan and June Young will share the role of Annie. The orphans will be Chloe Angiama, Freya Beer, Rachelle Bonfield-Bell, Olivia Brooks, Coco Chapman, Maddy Collings, Sienna Culm, Anna Deikalo, Dolly Ismail, Amber Koduah-Hutchison, Thandie Lalji, Jemima Lown, Kennedy-May McLeary, Mollie Moran, Myla Park, Blossom Rolston-Williams, Khit Thakhin and Marnie Rae Warren-Baker.
Amber Kennedy’s Lily St Regis, left, Claire Sweeney’s Miss Hannigan and Christian Cooper’s Rooster in Annie. Picture: Paul Coltas
Best known for It’s The Hard Knock Life, Easy Street, I Don’t Need Anything But You and Tomorrow, the Tony Award-winning Annie combines Strouse’s music with Charnin’s lyrics and Meehan’s book.
The touring production is directed by North Yorkshireman Nikolai Foster, artistic director of Curve, Leicester, with set and costume design by Colin Richmond, choreography by Nick Winston, lighting by Ben Cracknell and sound design by Richard Brooker.
Sweeney, from Walton, Liverpool, is an actress, singer and television presenter. She plays series regular Cassie Plummer in Coronation Street and appeared in Channel 4 soap opera Brookside as Lindsey Corkhill on and off from June 1991 until the final episode, broadcast in November 2003.
Claire Sweeney’s Miss Hannigan making her point to the orphans in Annie. Picture: Paul Coltas
Her TV credits include roles in Clocking Off, Holby City, Merseybeat, Candy Cabs, Scarborough, The Good Ship Murder and Benidorm.
Claire’s many West End roles include Roxie Hart in Chicago at the Adelphi Theatre and Miss Adelaide in Guys and Dolls, playing opposite Patrick Swayze, at the Piccadilly Theatre.
Claire’s further stage credits take in starring roles in national tours of 9 To 5 The Musical, Crazy For You, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Legally Blonde, Hairspray and September In The Rain and the title role of lippy Liverpool hairdresser-turned-Open University student Rita in Willy Russell’s Educating Rita, playing opposite Matthew Kelly’s cynical, alcoholic tutor Dr Frank Bryant.
Claire Sweeney in the tour poster for Annie
Sweeney has appeared in Willy Russell’s classic Shirley Valentine, White Christmas, Shout!, a world tour of Fosse and The Play What I Wrote too.
Tanisha-Mae Brown’s theatre credits include Singin’ In The Rain at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, Brigadoon at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, Guys And Dolls at The Bridge Theatre, Evita at Curve, Leicester, UK and Ireland tours of The Lion King and Chicago, A Mother’s Song at the Lowry, Salford, and Pippin at the Garden Theatre.
Christian Cooper played Rolf Gruber in The Sound Of Music at Curve, Leicester, directed by Nikolai Foster. Amber Kennedy’s theatre credits include the UK tour of Sister Act The Musical, UK and international tours of Joseph And tThe Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, the international tour of West Side Story and the pantomimes Dick Whittington and Sleeping Beauty, both at Theatre Royal Windsor.
Claire Sweeney in the photoshoot portrait announcing her role as Miss Hannigan in Annie
