This week we are joined by the daughter of ANNIE creator Martin Charnin - SASHA CHARNIN MORRISON!

This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:01] ♪ Musical number: "Little Me" — performed by Unknown artist ♪

[0:22] Marc Tumminelli: Today I have a very special guest with me. She's someone I have been dying to chat with for a while now. She has had probably the greatest overview of the meteoric rise of Annie the Musical. She's the daughter of Annie creator Martin Charnin. After growing up around the Broadway phenomenon and spending several years performing, she left show business behind and went on to put her stamp in the fashion world, working on such publications as Vanity Fair, Seventeen, Allure, Elle, Harper's Bazaar, US Weekly, and currently is the style director of CBS Watch. She's the author of Secrets of a Stylist, an insider's guide to styling the stars. Please welcome Sasha Charnin Morrison.

[1:00] Sasha Charnin Morrison: How are you?

[1:01] Marc Tumminelli: Oh my God, I'm good. How are you?

[1:04] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Thanks for having me. I mean, how could we not talk to the girl who saw all this sort of happen in front of her eyes? I mean, where to begin? But your father created one of the most successful musicals of all time.

[1:16] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Yes. My father sold luggage at Roosevelt Field.

[1:19] Marc Tumminelli: So just different.

[1:20] Sasha Charnin Morrison: I love Roosevelt Field.

[1:21] Marc Tumminelli: You love Roosevelt Field. We're gonna talk about clothes and shopping in a minute. Well, let's go back before Annie. Your parents met doing West Side Story.

[1:29] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Yes. Some people do not know that Martin was an original cast member of that show.

[1:33] Marc Tumminelli: Yes. And your mother was part of that show as well.

[1:36] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Yes. And that's where they met. Tell me what kind of stories they would tell you about meeting each other, working on probably one of the other most historic musicals of all time.

[1:46] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Oh my God, I know. It's a very New York, it's a true love story, New York story, and very rare that two people met on the stage and fell in love. You know, my brother also, this story is so crazy. Well, his mother, Lynn Ross, who's a great dancer, was in West Side with my dad. And then my mother replaced her on stage and in real life.

[2:22] Marc Tumminelli: Okay, so that is a lot to follow. So your dad was with so much.

[2:26] Sasha Charnin Morrison: So my father was an artist to begin with, and he went to music and art and to Cooper Union, and then got bitten by the bug when he went to paint some sets at Summerstock or where he met all of these amazing people like Mary Rogers and just all these people. And he got bitten, he went and he auditioned for this crazy casting call for authentic juvenile delinquents for a show called Gangway, because it wasn't called West Side Story yet. And he was not a singer, he was not a dancer, by any means not a dancer. But after numerous callbacks and whatnot, he got the gig is a big deal in West Side Story.

[3:08] Sasha Charnin Morrison: And then he was in the original cast in the 1957 original cast of West Side Story. Yes, it's amazing when you're a non-dancer to be and really not a singer, but he had a look, you know, he had a personality. And that gang of kids, basically, that he was part of really inspired him for most of his life when they were creating Annie. And you know, so he just had it, he knew it, met my mom. She was a shark girl. I should say that. That's important to understand.

[3:59] Sasha Charnin Morrison: So they were already, you know, opposition and oppositions on stage as staged by Jerome Robbins to actually not mingle, but they did. And thank God for the show because I wouldn't be talking to you right now.

[4:15] Marc Tumminelli: Well, that's great. And your mother has like this great story is that she is the artwork in the West Side Story posters. The posters that are licensed around the world. Check our Instagram for and I'll give it a big circle. But that's like a historic moment. I mean, your dad is an original cast member, your mother was paid, what'd you say? Like, yeah, like 25 dollars, 25 cents at this stage.

[4:39] Sasha Charnin Morrison: It keeps changing because she always changes the story. So it probably was nothing or 25 cents, you know, to just kind of be the figure. So she was the female figure, and the male figure was Alexander. Talent Johnson, yeah, great choreographer who was a best friend of my parents, and yeah, and that and so every time I see it, because a lot of people still use it, it's a great legacy to have.

[5:05] Sasha Charnin Morrison: I mean, you're really in this world where you're like born in a trunk. I mean, like literally a real musical theater kid, you know, born with two musical theater parents, or very few people that come out okay, and you seem to have done very well.

[5:19] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Yeah, thankfully, it's shocking because of this life growing up in Manhattan, which was the best possible thing that could have happened for me. So, yeah. And so what were your parents doing when you were born? Were your dad directing at that point and writing?

[5:37] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Yeah, so my father had decided that acting actually wasn't for him, that he actually wanted to be part of the creative team that makes decisions. That was very important to him. So he started to, he was very, I mean, I have to say he was really probably the most clever person. Well, my son actually kind of has now taken that over.

[6:00] Marc Tumminelli: Okay, but he's the second most clever person in your life.

[6:04] Sasha Charnin Morrison: He was really so clever and he became a lyricist. I don't know how that actually happens, but he had it in him. I will say his father was an opera singer with the Met. But his knack for lyric writing was something that was incredible. And he became a lyricist, and then he, after many jobs and many shows that closed before opening night and you know, out of town, whatever, he became a director because he realized that that was really what he wanted to do.

[6:38] Sasha Charnin Morrison: But he wrote several Broadway musicals as a lyricist with big stars like, you know, Judy Holliday, right? And then with Mary Rogers, he wrote Matahari and Matahari. Yeah, and yes, so a very, very famous swap, but well, flops have now become. I just became part of a Facebook group that's, you know, famous flop fans.

[6:56] Marc Tumminelli: Yeah, I think I'm in that group too. I'll see you there.

[7:04] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Yeah, it's like okay. It's a great group because here's like all of this stuff that had great promise, it just didn't stick, you know. But he was able to work with the most incredible people. Jack Cole, the choreographer, you know, Vincent Minelli was the director of Matahari, whether that was good or bad, you know, David Merrick, the producer, Richard Rogers and Harold Arlen were his collaborators as composers for Two by Two, which was a big Danny Kaye musical, and various other things.

[7:39] Sasha Charnin Morrison: So, yeah, it was really kind of great. It was really great. And you know, there I'll just keep going. There was like a moment when he went into television and he was doing variety specials in Los Angeles, and we were gonna move there, and then he realized that it was really theater for him. So he came back to New York, we had no money. And I'm gonna segue. Can I segue?

[8:06] Marc Tumminelli: Segway.

[8:07] Sasha Charnin Morrison: It's time for the segue. You told the story before, so here we go. It's just recorded now. So in 1971, I guess it was Christmas time. He walks into Doubleday Bookstore, which is on Fifth Avenue, which is where Prada is, and I go there often, and I stand in the section that he bought this book, which was a present for actually for Alan Johnson, which was The Life and Heart and End Times of Little Orphan Annie, which was a compilation of all the comic strip comic strips that Harold Gray had illustrated, and he was taken by it, and he was reading. I mean, thank God he saw it, right? Because if he'd gone to like the cooking section or something, it would not have ended up as well.

[8:49] Sasha Charnin Morrison: No, exactly. So he read the entire thing because he was, you know, really avid reader, and he just came up with this idea, and he said this would make a great idea for a musical. And you know, like most people for many years said, what are you crazy? That's the worst idea. And that was from his collaborators too, who eventually, you know, Thomas Meehan and Charles Strouse, the worst idea I have ever heard. And that worst idea has put me through college, paid for numerous things, continues to delight audiences, and sometimes the bad ideas, if you really believe that something like this has legs, you gotta go with it.

[9:38] Marc Tumminelli: So, what do you remember about sort of that time, this bad idea time where he had this idea of this musical and nobody was getting in the boat of his dream here?

[9:47] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Right. So, what I remember because I was really young, you know. I remember that we lived in Greenwich Village, and you want to talk about paycheck to paycheck. We weren't even he didn't even have a paycheck, you know. It's like in theater, you just I don't even know how we managed to get by.

[10:03] Marc Tumminelli: Was your mom working?

[10:05] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Kind of, uh-huh, you know. I mean, they lived beyond their means always, which, yeah, exactly. But you know what? They had a great time.

[10:15] Marc Tumminelli: Yeah.

[10:15] Sasha Charnin Morrison: So, you know, even though times were tough, and let's face it, in the early 70s, money was different then. So you were able to do a lot of things that you simply cannot do now. So they were just kind of he would go to various composers, people to get this thing going. And it took about five years from the time that he bought the book to, you know, he had to buy the rights with no money. I don't know how he did it. But you know, people also must have thought from the Tribune who published the, you know, the Chicago Tribune, you know, what is this is a little bit so worthless property, sell it right.

[10:58] Sasha Charnin Morrison: I mean, there had been, you know, Charles Strouse was a composer for Superman, the musical. So there had been comic strip musicals, but, you know, they were probably somewhat elated. And I just remember that it was he my parents at that point when he started to shop it, you know, to get producers and people, they had started to split. So my Saturdays were spent with him. And what did I do? I would go to backers auditions and I would go to numerous houses on the Upper West Side, and I would sit looking out the window, listening to whatever it was that was going on, and, you know, just kind of I kind of got Charles written the score, like where their songs to sing at.

[11:53] Sasha Charnin Morrison: So after Charles had initiated signed on and Tom Meehan, because I have a script from 1973, where it's I have to tell you that it is really not that different than what was, you know, put up at Goodspeed.

[12:12] Marc Tumminelli: Okay.

[12:12] Sasha Charnin Morrison: So where Annie first premiered. So they okay, so I did jump forward here. So he finally got Thomas Meehan, who was a writer for The New Yorker, to just so crazy, right? To agree to write a libretto for a musical. Now that was another kind of are you crazy? You know, that's not what I do, this is not what I want to do. But my father was very convincing when he wanted something I guess it was the Sagittarius in him or something. He was very convincing and he got him and Charles Strouse to finally agree to do something and then they started writing and it was a collaboration between three people and they would go when they have completed so in my 73 script there's no second act.

[13:06] Sasha Charnin Morrison: It's just kind of summaries at the top of the pages.

[13:09] Marc Tumminelli: Okay.

[13:10] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Um and but the first act was pretty much written with a lot of stuff that has managed to be recycled throughout the years. We got Annie was in the first act and okay then it then it turned up it just Anne Ron King's big number um I know oh you know I know that yellow dress yes exactly um so they would go to these backers auditions and you know thank you and and would turn down left and right I mean turn down so much so that we have a letter that was sent to the from the Needlander organization which basically said ho hum this doesn't work who cares you know we're not interested and the, you know, from a reader called a reader, who those people that read scripts, right? And then they don't even get passed on to the next, right on it so we he has that letter.

He kept that letter. And you have it, right? And I have it. I love it. That's really great. And it's really like ho hum, who cares? Who cares? He cared. He cared. And he, so then the other part of it was um, all right. So they get to, I'm I'm gonna keep going, right?

[14:30] Marc Tumminelli: Yeah, just keep going.

[14:31] Sasha Charnin Morrison: I'll jump in when I okay.

[14:32] Marc Tumminelli: When you when I need to fill in.

[14:34] Sasha Charnin Morrison: You're hitting all the questions I asked.

[14:36] Marc Tumminelli: Okay, good.

[14:37] Sasha Charnin Morrison: So he gets to Michael Price, who is the you know, artistic founder, director, whatever at the Good Speed Opera House, who was a god and a king in many ways to many of us. So, you know, Goodspeed had created and produced and done Man of La Mancha, which was a monstrous hit after it left Goodspeed, you know, and then it went to Broadway. So this was a place that they were really hoping that they would be able to um create this musical, and they passed.

[15:10] Wow.

[15:11] Sasha Charnin Morrison: And Michael Price credits his wife as saying that when they went to London to go see something, um he was humming tomorrow. He was humming the song. He didn't know the lyrics, but he was humming the tune. And she said to him, you know what that is. That's that song from that show. And so somehow, by the grace of God, um, they connected, they reconnected, and after numerous back and forths, now my father always wanted to be the director. They didn't want him to be the director, but after they auditioned, many people who simply didn't have wasn't the drive, but simply didn't have the passion for the piece, didn't understand it, didn't handle it the way that they had had it for so many, you know, they were sitting with it for so many years. Um finally begrudgingly agreed that he could direct this thing.

[16:11] And so then they, you know, they started casting, and numerous people who were how old are you at this point when we're going to be.

[16:21] Okay, so I'm about eight or nine.

[16:26] Sasha Charnin Morrison: All right, kind of a perfect age to be in the play. Exactly. He knew that my dad knew that I could sing and that I knew inflections and things. And so that was like good, and you know, whatever. I don't think that he ever really thought about me being auditioning for this thing because there was just too much to deal with. And I wasn't really interested. I wasn't interested in any way, shape, or form at that stage of making anything like this a career.

[16:56] Okay.

[16:57] Sasha Charnin Morrison: I was interested in being a kid. You know, I was at Little Red Schoolhouse downtown, and I was interested in my friends and just doing that. So with the Good Speed Summer, are you up there a bunch?

[17:10] Not yet.

[17:11] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Um when it's mounted with him as the director, I do go up. And um, I will say that the three authors, what was really helpful for this musical was that Charles Strauss, Thomas Meehan, and my father all had daughters.

[17:27] Yeah.

[17:28] Sasha Charnin Morrison: In uh various ages, we were all really young. So that was very helpful. Like when they were doing orphan names, well, well, we'll I mean you can tell it now.

[17:39] Oh, okay.

[17:39] Sasha Charnin Morrison: So when they were figuring out orphan names, the original ones were like the toughest, the this, the that, right? Um the sweetest and whatever. And then finally, when they moved to the Kennedy Center in Washington, they actually gave them names. So one of them was named July, and that was when I was born in July.

[18:01] What's your birthday?

[18:02] Sasha Charnin Morrison: July 27th.

[18:03] Marc Tumminelli: Oh, I'm the first.

[18:04] Sasha Charnin Morrison: So okay.

[18:05] Marc Tumminelli: Yeah, anyway, July babies.

[18:07] Sasha Charnin Morrison: It's all good. Um so uh so July is you.

[18:15] Okay, and uh, you know, like uh Danielle Brisbois has a great you should actually speak to her.

[18:21] Marc Tumminelli: I know I have she's almost yeah, she um she'll tell you so much more, but she was so young when she she credits me for getting her the job because we looked very similar.

[18:35] Okay.

[18:35] Sasha Charnin Morrison: So I'm like, well, I think you got the job because you were very talented, Missy. And um, you know, so she so it's very funny. So she had a choice between her names, you know, she could be Molly or Mary Ann.

[18:51] And she's like, gotta be Molly.

[18:54] Sasha Charnin Morrison: She's like, I'm not gonna that sounds like someone's stepmother.

[18:56] Yeah, exactly.

[18:57] Marc Tumminelli: Is that Mary Ann?

[18:59] Sasha Charnin Morrison: So I think she so why she chose Molly, nice to have a choice, you know.

[19:04] I know that normally doesn't happen.

[19:06] Sasha Charnin Morrison: All right, we're going back to good speed. So that's where you go up, you see this.

[19:09] Marc Tumminelli: Go up and I meet Andrea McArdle, who is in a stair, a stairway at Good Speed, and she's um she's got a spray can in her hand, and it's uh hairspray in a color, and she is literally spraying her hair because she has now assumed the role of Annie because Kristen Vigard, who's the original, was let go because she simply did not fit, you know, what they're doing.

[19:38] She didn't have the toughness of this street.

[19:41] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Yeah, she just was too beautiful and too sweet, you know, and she knows she's great too. You speak to her. I mean, she's amazing too working on it. Nobody can confirm if she ever played the part on Broadway.

[19:54] I think she played it for a half a performance because um I can ask her, but she Andrea had had numerous uh things happen, like a broken tooth, and you know she's like getting into a fist fight in the alley.

[20:10] Yeah, we all love Andrea.

[20:12] Marc Tumminelli: Oh, okay, all right.

[20:13] Sasha Charnin Morrison: So she's something at yeah, I think she went on a half a time. I think she like second acted or something.

[20:19] All right, we can get more.

[20:20] Marc Tumminelli: We'll get to Broadway in a minute.

[20:22] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Back to goods. So I meet these guys, so I meet her, she's spraying her hair in the and I don't, you know, at that stage, I really don't know what's happening. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know anything. I don't know the sound of the voices. I don't know, I don't know anything about this musical that I've been with for, you know, because I'm a kid again, right?

[20:42] So I I wanted to go to like Woolworths across the street.

[20:45] Marc Tumminelli: Most kids don't know like what their dad does all day.

[20:49] Right, exactly.

[20:50] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Totally normal.

[20:51] Exactly. Now, yeah, had it been smarter, I would have been like, yo, listen, listen to me. Okay, you know, I'll gonna sing some song and you know, whatever. So, um, so I didn't know what was happening, and I didn't understand anything.

[21:05] And I go and I watch this show.

[21:07] Oh, and then I'd also met Janine Rouane, who played July, and Shelly Bruce was up there visiting, so she hadn't even been part of the show yet.

[21:19] Yeah, you know, and I was and I met Laura Dean, who was uh in the fame movie, and she was an orphan, and um and then yeah, so I didn't know what to expect.

[21:32] I go to see this show, and being a kid behind the scenes is different than being kid in the scenes, yeah, because it's uh it's a different high, it's a different elevation. You're very elevated, you know, you feel very regal, um, because you're the daughter of the guy who's doing this, and it just felt so empowering and so uplifting, you know, and then the overture starts, it sounds great, you know.

[22:08] I'm still whatever, and then the kids are up, and it's girls on stage, and it was like, oh my god, what is happening? You know, the kids had never been in musicals like this. This is uh well, there's Oliver, right? So boys, but not girls, not girls as a team, right?

[22:30] Yeah, so there were kids, music men, you know, there were kids around, but there were never kids like this singing in keys that were like, what? And you hear, you know, maybe was great, but you hear that bum bum bum bum, and you and you know, you will always remember that, right?

[22:55] Yes, whatever key it was in the impossible king heat is singing. Thanks, Charles.

[23:00] Thanks.

[23:01] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Yeah. Um, so yeah.

[23:04] So you remember that night sitting in the theater being like, this is very cool.

[23:09] This is beyond anything that I had thought about.

[23:14] Yeah.

[23:15] Marc Tumminelli: And so the next step was raising some money and going to DC to sort of flush out the show before.

[23:23] Sasha Charnin Morrison: So what happens is they have various. So what happens when you do something like this? So you have various producers come up to your show and then you take a look and see what's going on. Whether that's something that they want to raise money for. And you know, Mike Nichols came up.

[23:40] I don't know how somebody was connected to Mike.

[23:43] Sasha Charnin Morrison: I think it was Charles. So he invited him up. He came up, and you know, Mike hadn't done any Broadway shows or musicals.

[23:54] Um as a producer. He'd been a director, you know, he's at this type at this time very uh famous, but not as a producer.

[24:05] Sasha Charnin Morrison: So he was so important for the um, you know, creation of this whole thing, and um helped the production in many ways. Um, everybody will confirm because as I said with the script and having that 1973 script, you know, Mike didn't step in to direct it, he helped keep all of the people that come in, the producing team and other people come in with their opinions, and he helped keep them away.

[24:38] Wow.

[24:39] Sasha Charnin Morrison: So that the creators, because he understood the process, right? So the creators knew that they had a champion in him because they could do the work, because they needed to do the work, they needed to polish it. He agreed to do it. And once you get somebody like that, and then okay, the reviews were great and awful.

[25:01] There's no in between.

[25:02] Marc Tumminelli: Yes.

[25:02] Sasha Charnin Morrison: I was just reading one last night that was so terrible that it's like if you had a you didn't have a spine, you would have just said, forget it. It's done. I'm not doing it. But my dad had a spine, thank God. And then so they start to put it together, and then they go to uh they get the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.

[25:23] And let me tell you, you know how I was saying that you feel regal and like I really felt like the, you know, like the queen's child. I feel I felt like the air apparent then, because the at that stage you have David Mitchell set, you're on this giant stage, you have these costumes by Theoni Aldra.

[25:43] Sasha Charnin Morrison: It was so beautiful and so smart. You know, it wasn't and still isn't a kid's show. It was a show for everybody. It was so smart because of Tom and what they had created, that it was just magical. And you're really massive of a hit in DC. I mean, like people were lined up around the block to try to get in to see this thing. Right. And you have to understand that at that time, you know, no social media, no, it was really word of mouth of people that had gone and you know, whatever. But it was really just like you'd know, you didn't know the sound yet. You know, the sound of Annie, the sound of the voices, this that had not been cemented in anybody's brain. Nobody got it except that they knew something of that comic strip. Yeah. So, you know, and then the word, and then it started to trickle in, and it was, and then it was, you know, golden.

[26:45] Marc Tumminelli: And how did you sort of deal with this excitement of my dad wrote this thing that I kind of should be in, but also that I'm around, you know, like it's like in the middle of a tornado, I'm sure.

[26:56] Sasha Charnin Morrison: It was like a reverse proud feeling, you know, when your parents are so proud of you as a kid for coloring something, yeah. Um, I was so proud to be the daughter of this person, and I didn't really understand still exactly what had happened. Um, but I was so proud and so happy to just be part of something that was this, and then you know, it comes into town to New York, and it's monstrous. I can't even describe like uh we could say it's like it was a Hamilton of the time. It was like it was beyond him, beyond that. Yeah, right, because I was a kid, and there were kids in this thing, and then there were famous people that were coming to this thing, and the songs were being sung by people, and you know, it was it was to be the toast of Broadway and to see that with all of the work being completely broke.

Um, you know, I think the story again keeps changing. It was like, you know, $33 left to buy the New York Times and the other papers to read the reviews, and then overnight it was overnight, it changed our lives.

[28:17] Marc Tumminelli: Was it hard for you to watch your dad have those connections with those young girls that were not you? Because it seems as though from everyone I've spoken to that he was such a like a wonderful champion of these young people and was tough with them, but also warm and like a father. You know, everyone says, like a father. And if I was the daughter, I'd be like, wait a second, that's my dad.

[28:38] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Yeah. I was very involved, more so than Kate Meehan, who was Tom's daughter and Victoria Strauss, who is Charles' daughter. I was I was there all the time and he made me feel like I was part of the group. So I was always invited to go to the White House, and I was always invited to be like most people are right. Because you don't know any different. It's like, okay, this is my life, you know, and it just this is the one that clicked. Um, he always included me in everything, in including when Janine was leaving uh in July or June.

[29:22] Marc Tumminelli: Yeah.

[29:23] Sasha Charnin Morrison: We're getting very close to your birthday.

[29:25] Marc Tumminelli: Yeah.

[29:26] Sasha Charnin Morrison: He's uh and very close to camp.

[29:28] Marc Tumminelli: Yeah.

[29:28] Sasha Charnin Morrison: There's an audition to replace Janine. And so he made me that was the beginning of him making me he made me audition for everything that he was involved with.

[29:37] Marc Tumminelli: Okay.

[29:37] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Pretty much. Tell me about that. Everything. I didn't, it doesn't, it wasn't, I never had nerves. I didn't understand what really what was happening, other than this was the cool situation. But I also knew when I was auditioning that I was extremely, and I'm very short, by the way, but I was extremely tall. And you know, there's a height thing that you can't be too tall and Annie because it doesn't make any sense. I mean there could be old orphans by the way but that was not the story that they were telling great but I was uh at this stage I'm like uh 12 so I I auditioned I didn't get it even though I know that I probably should have and he did apologize years later um see see I I'm broken you're just getting we're getting over it today well it would have been so cool you know oh my god of course yeah but um but I went to camp because that's what I was excited to do did you go to theater camp later I did I went to Stage Grow Manor later yeah but at first you just went to regular camp I went to Lenora Wesa in Hinsdale Massachusetts and I was so happy but I was happy because my dad created this thing on Broadway that everybody wanted to go see after camp was over okay so there's always that there's always that thing the connection would that be something that you know you'd be like my how would you bring that up you know what I mean where it's like everyone knows what Annie is every little girl knows what Annie is especially and if you're like my dad wrote that like that I sometimes I'll do that but very rarely somebody will actually say and do you know what her dad did yeah you know so people are thinking that they he actually like you know cured something or but I guess they did cure a lot he got a lot of us sucked into this business in a weird way.

[31:32] Marc Tumminelli: How was your mom through all of this? I mean, to see sort of her ex-husband become like the toast of Broadway after all the struggle, I'm sure was tricky.

[31:41] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Was terrific and supportive because she knew because she believed in it. Uh, even when they split up, she just knew this thing had legs. I mean, that's when I got that expression. This has legs, you know. She really knew she got it because she was a show business girl too woman. So she, you know, she got it, and and we were happy. And then, you know, and then 1977, you know, suddenly you're he was a millionaire overnight.

[32:13] Marc Tumminelli: Wow.

[32:14] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Um, and got what he worked very hard to get. And it was great. I mean, she loved it. We had, I mean, it was great. Was there like a level of stress you could feel about him trying to keep this thing also running and keep it at the top and find the next set of girls and all of the things that once you do have a hit, you have to figure out how to maintain the hit, and he's the guy, you know, it was not driving the car.

[32:41] Marc Tumminelli: It was nothing more exciting than casting day.

[32:45] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Oh, tell me about well, I met so many, you know, I have so many great memories of friends and people that I met along the way who were kids that were auditioning for the show. I always went to the um kids' auditions, I didn't really go to the adults.

[33:00] Marc Tumminelli: Um, but you like sit behind the table?

[33:04] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Probably. I mean, I was I would sit behind the table, I would get people coffee.

[33:10] Marc Tumminelli: I'm so jealous.

[33:11] Sasha Charnin Morrison: I'm so jealous of yeah, yeah, yeah. It's it's a great I know.

[33:15] Marc Tumminelli: Sorry, but it was really great.

[33:17] Sasha Charnin Morrison: I mean, it was so cool. Because I tell, you know, I because when you're elevated like that, um, you're just you're just cool. And then when, you know, for for many years, like I'm Martin's daughter, I'm Martin's daughter.

[33:32] Marc Tumminelli: Oh my god, oh you know, yeah.

[33:35] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Yeah, it's great. And what do you remember about any of those casting things where like we found the girl? This is the next girl. This is our yeah, the process was really cool because they would they were very gentle with the auditions, you know, because they had kids and they got it, you know.

[33:51] Marc Tumminelli: So there were you know, four billion kids at these calls, and they had a system down, and they treated them like people.

[34:02] Sasha Charnin Morrison: They never, you know, so when you were told to be quiet, there was this great level of you know, kids really paying attention and listening. I don't remember any unruly kids, you know, everybody was on their best behavior because at this stage now, right? You are it's some it's really solid, so you know what's happening and you want the job because you want to sing at the songs and you want to scrub the floor and you want to do things, so um, it was a great process to go through because they would eliminate people and then they and he was just they were very kind, and my dad would handle the auditions and he handled it pretty much up until the last day, you know.

[34:51] Marc Tumminelli: Um he was just very great.

[34:54] Sasha Charnin Morrison: A lot of people have reached out to me since he passed and have said great things like the experience of auditioning for him was great, and I'm so happy that I had that opportunity because I was treated like a human, you know. You know, I was I was treated with what was like we're not an adult of respect, you know, of like you kids are gonna be carrying the show. Let's give you let's not treat you like babies because you have to come out here and do the show.

[35:22] Marc Tumminelli: That's right.

[35:22] Sasha Charnin Morrison: And also it's a business. You need to, you know, you need to get uh you need to to grow and you need to learn things and you need to listen. And you know, god am I listening to myself saying things like this, and I do sound like him. So it's it's kind of it's it's it's rubbed off in the best way possible.

[35:38] Marc Tumminelli: Yes.

[35:39] Sasha Charnin Morrison: When the Broadway show closed and then a movie was happening, how was that a very tricky thing for him not to be as involved as he probably would have wanted to?

[35:48] Yes, the show was still open, I believe, and the movie was about to. I just remember, yeah.

[35:55] Marc Tumminelli: It was exciting when they made the sale.

[35:59] Sasha Charnin Morrison: It was, and I could send you the variety cover, which he blew up because he he saved every clipping of everything. And we wouldn't have that.

[36:08] Marc Tumminelli: Yeah, yeah, like everything, you know.

[36:11] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Um, and it was exciting, and then it turned into I'm not gonna say a disaster, but it was very heartbreaking because Hollywood's really hard.

[36:26] Marc Tumminelli: Yeah, and their original producer was you know, caught with a terrible situation where he had to get basically resign.

[36:35] Sasha Charnin Morrison: So somebody else took over, and it was and it and it turned and it changed, and they were not very welcoming and they didn't understand, you know. And then on on the flip side, it's like Broadway peep, you know, Broadway and Hollywood are two totally different things.

[36:52] Marc Tumminelli: And I learned that on the Annie Live.

[36:54] Sasha Charnin Morrison: I learned I learned that TV people also, you know, you do have a common goal, but it is a totally different business.

[37:02] Marc Tumminelli: Yeah.

[37:03] Sasha Charnin Morrison: So and the way that you handle things completely different. Um, what I have learned is that you buy something like this, and they simply don't. I'm gonna say this because it's been said many times. I'm not gonna, you know, this is not news, but you know, you have to trust the product. You can't think really that um, you know, something that's great that wins seven Tony Awards, best musical, best script, you know, whatever. You can't, you can try to do things differently. I don't you have to do it gently. And it and if it enhances it in a way, then great. But there's this common thing that they think that they can reinvent everything, yeah.

[37:49] Marc Tumminelli: But why?

[37:50] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Why do you need to reinvent it? It's great as it is. So, in my mind, in my family's view, I share this with my brother, my my father's widow, my everybody, my mother. Um, is that you know, it's great, it's not broken. Make a movie that's actually worthy of this piece and don't change it. It doesn't need to be, it's so smart. You know, you have like the man who worked at the New Yorker writing the book. It's so smart, don't change it. Now I love the 82 movie because it was like my gateway into Annie, and a lot of us have a lot of love for it, and Aileen's performance and and and all the performances caramel yes you know, it's it's a very special movie to a lot of us, but we know that it's not what anyone positions doing.

[38:41] Sasha Charnin Morrison: And it's so it that was a very personal moment that I just went to I just no it's I'm sure it was like hard to kind of live through to be like yes my dad who had full control of this to not it was it was very hard for him to under to that he had they had to rewrite NYC yeah you know they had just run out of money so they couldn't do that because they did this you know these crazy productions that they ended up cutting yes so um see street industry and all of that yes never made it that opening that never no one ever saw we went to um we went to a we went to Radio City once and you know it was really it was really sad like he was very sad they were very sad because they weren't treated like they had been treated you know um as the kings of Broadway you know it was kind of it was kind of awful but so over the years it's been very interesting to see how um you know like songs like dumb dog are so important to people and um you know let's replace tomorrow with dumb dog dumb dog that is really wild there you go but it's a sweet little song um no it's very sweet it's very now were you uh I mean I have we have so much to talk about but were you thrilled with the Kathy Bates Rob Marshall Annie movie because it was that was the closest yeah it was closer um we're getting there yeah I know he was happy with it um that was Rob Marshall right yes.

[40:15] Marc Tumminelli: Yeah.

[40:16] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Yes. I know that he was happy with it. And you know, I just I think that um the casting was great. And uh again, they stuck to they stuck to it. Um I think there were some things that you know the chicness, it was different, it was just it was it was different, but it but there was happiness all around. Good. Um, yeah. Now you at some point you had to make a decision, like I'm not interested in the performing arts, but you did it, like you were working as an actor and King Jobs.

[40:54] Sasha Charnin Morrison: I started like at 13, and then I went to NYU and I was still in it, but and you understudied Andrea McCardell in something. Tell us that story.

[41:05] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Oh my god. So uh Andrea was doing this review at the Saint at the St. Regis in the King Call room. Um I don't even know how I got this gig, but I auditioned for Andrea's understudy because she needed one, and uh I got it, and uh which was crazy. Um I mean it wasn't Annie's songs, it was Irving Berlin, which is amazing. Um I got to sing her songs. I went on many times, actually. Um it was it was great for many reasons. Um one was that it was understudying her and she was my friend, two, I got to sing with Larry Kurt, who was my godparent, amazing, who was also in the show. Three, I got to work with Debrie Gravit and Terry Burrell, and four, Donna Murphy and I were understudies. It's cool. Donna Murphy was uh Debbie's understudy.

They had actually not hired somebody for Debbie, and I had to go on for debt for Debbie once, which was weird. Um, that's like the first time I ever wore Yves Saint Laurent on the uh on uh on stage, um, which was great. Uh that was alarming, but uh yeah, Donna and I were understudies. And so at what point were you like, I don't want to be a performer, I have this other gift.

[42:36] Sasha Charnin Morrison: So I have always loved fashion. My parents were the best stylists I ever knew. My father's style was on the you know, on the flip side of everything else. Everything I learned about style was from my parents. Um, you know, because they worked, they would style things and with things from all over the place because you know, there was no internet, there was, you know, New York was different. Yeah, find a piece here and a yeah, a thing for the case. So my dad, you know, who's like this big fashion plate, would always do something like he'd wear a big fox fur coat with jeans and loafers and tube socks. It's sort of what I was wearing the one time I met him, right? Of course, right? Larger than life, larger than life.

So you know, it's like six one, and you know, it's just like awesome. Um yeah, so between him and my mother, who was incredible, who incredible style, and my father met this woman who changed my life. Um, my stepmother, Jade Hobson, she was at the time the um one of the fashion editors of Vogue. So when that happens, um the same time that I auditioned for Annie and was going to camp, I met her. And my meeting with her were two. One was on a shoot with the great Chris von Waggenheim, who's an incredible photographer, and the second was to go to the Vogue fashion closet just to like say hi. That was it. Yeah. That was it. Lightning bolt through my head, right? So I went to NYU. I got my degree.

The second that I graduated, I was off to Vanity Fair. That was it. I was going to fashion. I didn't care about show business anymore. This is what I wanted to do. And you know, I was smart because what was I going to do? I was going to wait tables. Yeah. I was the worst waitress in the history of waiting. If anybody can confirm that who I waited on. So um hopefully they don't remember it. Wait, did you work with Madonna while you were at NYU and you dressed her for something? Is that what happened to Madonna story?

[44:45] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Right. So during my NYU, I think it was the summer that I graduated. So my friend who worked on was working on the show as kind of like an intern in the writer's room for um David Rabe, I think wrote, right? Goose and Tom Tom. So the writers uh had found out that they the costume designer needed somebody to um assist him. And I was called in as an assistant to Kevin Dornen, the late Kevin Dornen, who was the costume designer in a show called Goose and Tom Tom at Lincoln Center. And I was the dresser to Madonna Lorraine Bracco, and then I was the picker up the clothes after the show was over for Harvey Kaitel, Barry Miller, and Sean Penn.

[45:37] Marc Tumminelli: Oh my god, what?

[45:39] Sasha Charnin Morrison: What an experience do you have? That's like the cool part. It's like, you know, you go from this one thing to that. Um, yeah, and also like you're used to being around celebrities. I mean, Madonna wasn't Madonna yet.

[45:50] Marc Tumminelli: Yeah, right.

[45:51] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Yes. We had a run-in. We had a run-in where she called me, hey you. She's like, hey, you get me. First of all, I mean, you know, I've yeah, I met Fred Astaire. I met like really great incredible mermit. Crazy great huge stars. But Madonna, forget it. So I'm, you know, I I think my jaw was on the floor most of that. She was so little that it and I wasn't tall, but it was like, oh my goodness. So when I when I saw her, she said, Hey, you get me a mirror. So, you know, I I made a decision very quickly in my mind. I could either get fired by giving her some lip, or I could just say, you know, listen, my name is Sasha, I'll get you whatever you need, but you know, you can't talk to me like that. And I went for the ladder, which was ballsy and at that time.

And then great, she left me alone, and then everything was fine. And so you've had this tremendous career working at various magazines and now at CBS, um, sort of uh being this creator of what looks should be. And I watched like a million YouTubes of you talking about various fashion things, and you just have this like amazing sense of what's cool and what's not and what works and what doesn't. What kind of things are you do you do to like figure that out, knowing nothing about that world?

[47:13] Sasha Charnin Morrison: I very luckily was born with a good eye about stuff like this. And you know, you either have it or you don't, honestly. There's a lyric, right? You either have it or you had it. Yeah, yeah. Um, so, and I could sing it too. Um, but uh yeah, I just I just have uh an eye for it. And I know I'd like to go uh an extra step to find something that's so great and so unique. And um I can so my job had basically become what's called a market editor, which is finding clothes for shoots. That that's what I did for magazines for many years. And that is just knowing who you're working for, what you need to do, how do you bridge a relationship? And a lot of my show business um, you know, training worked for me because I had no fear. I had no fear when I met Karl Lagerfeld. I had no fear when I met Stella McCartney. I had no fear when I met in the same way your dad had no fear trying to sell this idea that one wanted.

[48:18] Marc Tumminelli: Exactly.

[48:18] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Yes, it's amazing. Exactly. Because my idea is the best idea that you've ever heard. And if you don't like it, there's something wrong with you. All right. I need I'm gonna take a page from this book. It's so you're you're brilliant. We have to touch down on the Annie Revivals, Annie Warbucks, and then we do quick fire questions. Okay. Look at your face, they say Annie Warbucks. So your dad worked really hard to get a sequel of Annie to happen, Annie Two, which closed out of town, and then subsequently became Annie Warbucks, which I saw when I was like 11 at the Brighty Arts Theater and was very obsessed with it. Um it was kind of like he was back to a little bit square one trying to make this thing happen again.

[48:55] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Yes. Um, and you're a little bit older now. So what do you remember about uh sort of the Annie Two Annie Warbucks time?

[49:03] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Well, Annie Two was very devastating because we went and we knew that it wasn't working. I mean, it wasn't working to a point where it was hard to tell him that it wasn't working. We started out, yeah, it's great. And then by the end of the lunch or dinner, whatever, actually, it probably started as lunch and then turned into dinner, right? Um, we were like, it actually sucks. You're gonna have to go back and you know, and and we gave it to him. Um, we just said, you know, it's just not it's a not Annie, and B, it shouldn't be Annie, but there's so many elements that are missing. And then he knew he knew that they, you know, they robbed their audience of what the kids were coming for. I mean, they came for this, you know, this great thing with kids dancing and whatnot, and there were no kids in it.

I mean, there were kids in it, but it wasn't it didn't so right. It was about Dorothy Loudoun and you know, Miss Hannigan, and just didn't work. So that was heartbreaking when uh it failed. Um, but he was used to failure. Um, so you know, but I think the reviews were really biting, and I think it's hard to recover from it, but he did. Um then he reapproofed it and turned it into Annie Warbucks. And then they worked uh very for a long time into Annie Warbucks, which happens to be a a musical that a lot of people actually really love. It's very charming, yeah. And it was um, and that was great, you know. And then of course it was a snowstorm, and then that uh killed the run, but um in New York, and uh because the audience is simply and then our an original producer also was maybe Annie's dad. Is that a true story?

[50:44] Sasha Charnin Morrison: No, that story has not no, no.

[50:47] Marc Tumminelli: Oh, you uh was it Lauren Gaff? Are you talking about Lauren Gaff?

[50:49] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Yeah, I thought that the whoever was before Kathmand Zaremba was let go, she got really big and her dad pulled out money. Like that was the story that no, I actually have heard you say that before, and I don't believe that that's true. Lauren Gaffney was, you know, almost like part of the family in many ways. But I I think he was heartbroken actually when she did get too tall for the role, and you could see it, you know, like that video that it that that's oh yeah, we're chasing around the table. Yeah, yeah. And then the Pantages would love that song Love, which I love. Um, you could see that she's getting too tall, and she was, you know, she was ready to she was ready to go.

[51:29] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Um, Catherine, I remember seeing Catherine the first time when she did the other woman, right? Uh that song from the um from the Annie Warbox. And I said to my dad, I was like, you know, that little girl, I didn't know who she was at the time. And I said, she really has it. And it got it, and she was, you know, she's and now God, she's so talented. You see what she's doing now? Yeah, she she makes wallpaper and she's a designer and she's so mom and so cool. She's just also like the coolest girl. And yeah, uh, and she's had such a great story and journey.

[52:03] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Off Broadway was a great place, a great, you know, place to mount the vehicles that you wanted to do, because then you would have it's like going out of town and you had the time to actually, you know, work on it and create it. So um he was still in New York, so it he didn't, it wasn't it wasn't that. It was uh he was actually very excited and then started to do smaller things because I think he knew, and he is quoted as saying this, that he was um probably not gonna have a hit to this the the colossal scale that and then look at Annie today musically, yeah. You know, something's coming up that on a season finale of a great that I can't talk about, but I'm gonna say kind of you know, a season finale of an incredible uh episodic show. Um that even one of the songs is going to be included, I think. Um that still to this day, 45-ish six years later, it's still in the conversation.

[53:08] Sasha Charnin Morrison: We're still having this conversation. I know, and there and people love the Annie content because it was the thing that got them to love theater and Broadway. Yeah. And that changed their trajectory of their lives, and that's because of a lot of people because of Annie. And so, you know, obviously it's one of the most revived musicals. I mean, having the we I have to just I just have to ask about '97. How could I ignore it? Okay. So what was your from your view of that whole situation with Joanna and Britney and the switchover? And I mean, that had to have been a very hard thing for your dad to like kind of deal with.

[53:43] Sasha Charnin Morrison: And from Joanna's perspective, he she felt so taken care of by your dad through the hardest. Yeah. I heard your podcast with her. She was very gracious, by the way. I was with her. Me too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, because she was so young when that happened. Um, I think that he was very busy at the time.

[54:04] Sasha Charnin Morrison: So he was doing that, he was dealing with Nell Carter, he was because they were putting in new numbers, and she was a star to a level that was different than what they had kind of, you know, been uh had worked with before. And um, so he really needed to work very hard on that and um on you know on getting the great performance out of her, and then uh he was working on a Joan of Arc musical so he was kind of all over the place and I think that it was very heartbreaking when um because the producers ultimately were the ones that uh made the decision to fire her and um I just remember that it just didn't go down well it wasn't great um and then suddenly brittle was in it she's I mean she was fantastic very young kid um could sing the score no problems I think that it was a strange time because they uh you know the the the um the turning point uh ABC Barbara Walters special uh broadcasted all the bad stuff about it like all it was so salacious I mean yes it's until our recent funny girl drama there's not been a lot of that kind of thing on Broadway it just it's true it just goes under the wire and no one normally cares but and still thank you know and thankfully at that point no social media yet right yeah so it was just based on that and that was that and it was hard that um you know it came in and then it wasn't received in the way that they they had anticipated it and I think it was very hard for them all to deal with the situation.

[55:51] Sasha Charnin Morrison: So um, you know it's it is a business but you have to be you know emotional about it. So it also feels like there's always another Annie around the corner because then after that, then there was the TV movie that was quite beautiful. And then obviously you had the last revival which your father did not direct. Right you should have which he should have. Um, but that's a whole separate podcast. Well, that you know that, yeah, yes. Yes, it's a whole yeah, but you know, it's interesting because I can say this now because he wouldn't, I mean, yeah, I talk I talk to him all the time.

[56:23] Sasha Charnin Morrison: I'm sure um it was hard. That was really hard. But I think that at that point it would have been okay for him to kind of let go of the baby, right? Okay. And he didn't. And I think that he could have. And uh it it put it set him in a in a bit of a spiral, a mental kind of challenging spiral, just about, you know, and I would say to him, you know, think about this. Um, so you they're doing it, it's great, it's up, it looks, you know, it's fine, everything's good, you know, whatever.

[56:58] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Um, but think about the fact that you've written a song that I would say uh everybody in the world knows. Yeah. So just that gives people hope. And that you know, so think about the kind of positive side of it. And I would say that to him many times. And it it's one thing, and I would always say to him, I'll always tell you the truth. And you know, and and um that worked a little bit, you know, but it was still it was still really hard.

[57:28] Sasha Charnin Morrison: But he should have, I think, let go of it a little bit and just let it breathe. Um, you know, um I think he could have been used a little bit more for you know certain beats and things that are very important, but just seemed to have not been touched on in that particular production. It was like, oh, you know, there's that's supposed to be funny, right? Right, um, there was a lot of that, but um, you know, and and it's in his DNA, you know, he's set that show a million times.

[58:00] Sasha Charnin Morrison: He understands yeah. Well, I think when he thought that there were stupid things that were put in there, like the kids didn't need accents because in Manhattan, where we all grew up, and my dad grew up in Washington Heights. My, you know, my mother grew up in Brooklyn. I mean, well, she had an accent, which she got rid of, but um, but in Manhattan, where this thing happens, there are very few things you don't really have an accent.

[58:25] Sasha Charnin Morrison: You say words differently, like water, yeah, you know. Um, you say things differently, but you don't really have an accent. So I think that really hurt, and you hear it in some of the recordings, and it's just really it's just it's one of you know, the lyric, she um she's sitting playing piana, like that's betcha piana. That's it. You get it, you get it, you got it. It's you know you don't need yes, officer on Alicia with the license. It's like, where am I? It's awful, it's awful.

[58:58] Sasha Charnin Morrison: It's not the right move. Jen Thompson, who is now directing the yes, we're about to talk about this. Oh, it's sorry, did I segment? No, it's great. I just I I just want to say that, you know, obviously people are listening, but your dad, you know, died in 2019, and now you are uh and the community all felt this great sadness because of what he created and what he's done for so many of us.

[59:18] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Yeah, and I'm sure that you felt that as well. But now you're responsible for this property and what's to come with it, which is kind of an amazing place to be for a kid who grew up with this. So I wanted you to just kind of before we wrap up, just touch on what you want to do now with this show that yet you get to be a part of what happens in the future.

[59:38] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Yes. Well, one thing that's really kind of great is that it's not just us, we are a team of people. The uh the Mians, the Strausses and the Charnin are all part of a team that we'll call Bradley Mafia. Well it's really kind of great and we you know basically have the same idea uh share the same views of how these moving forward how productions need to go um and uh and it's great it's a great collaboration to be part of of that um and so there's an all new tour going out this and then there's a new tour that's going out from the the a Troika who had actually produced the last tour that my dad um worked on recently um is now sending out this huge tour across the United States and the thrilling thing is that Jen Thompson who's incredible director and also a great friend of my husband and I we all went to high school together um she's directing it and um we couldn't be more thrilled um that she's doing that and Jen was pepper on Broadway so it makes it even more so incredible and we've had several discussions about certain things you know and just like little lyrical things I'm like get rid of those accents and um you know and she said don't worry everything you know so she's it's it's so exciting.

[1:01:17] Sasha Charnin Morrison: And you know, she has a daughter. And it's just, it's really it. So I haven't been. I'm gonna go see the one of the rehearsals before they go. Um, but uh, and you know, it it's quite a it's quite a large tour. I've seen. Did you see the costumes are up? No, I haven't looked at any of that. I'll check it out. Okay, so the sketches are up, the sets look amazing. You know, and they have to play, it's it's like a it's a touring company.

[1:01:43] Sasha Charnin Morrison: So they're gonna be in 5,000 seat theaters. Right, 5,000 seats, but only for three nights. Yeah. And then they travel and then they go to an yeah, it's they're huge venues, but you know, it's very exciting, and um casting was you know, genius, and um I think that it it's gonna be in her hands, it's gonna be it. We're very we're very excited. And I'm sure you'll be able to see your dad so much on stage in that.

[1:02:09] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Well, it's gonna be really hard, you know, to hear it all it it all it needs to do, because I'm a crier, so all it needs to all needs to happen is I just need to hear every time, every time. Tears to, you know, just like total tears running down my face. Uh it'll start right there. She's and you she said the same thing happened to her. No, when she had the orchestra play, she said the same thing happened to her.

[1:02:36] Marc Tumminelli: And are you yeah, sorry. Are you working on? I just want to quickly touch on the tomorrow project and re-releasing your dad's book, which I have up there.

[1:02:44] Sasha Charnin Morrison: But thank you. No, it's a great book. But um, I uh what what can we expect from, you know, well, the tomorrow project, my husband and my brother are working on this great um drive, this this great thing that's um kind of under wraps for the moment, but um really taking the the message of hope and and putting it to good use.

[1:03:07] Sasha Charnin Morrison: So they're working on that. We are working on camps. We are working, so I'm working to revisit his book because it's out of print. And um to it's a great story, like everything that I just basically told you is that story. And so there's beautiful photos, it's a it's a gorgeous story. It's very um behind the scenes photos of things that you want to see because it's not only people who came backstage, but it was just the process and lyrics and you know, uh that were never seen.

[1:03:42] Sasha Charnin Morrison: And yeah, there's like all those script pages ripped out coming back. It's a great book. Yeah, yes, it's thank you. It's very cool. And it's just really uh a very fun, great thing to uh I wish, you know, I would give it all back if I could just get him back. I mean, yeah, that's how that's that's that.

[1:04:04] Sasha Charnin Morrison: So because he had such a drive with it. I mean, he was um I think he was 83 and he was still going, you know, he was like still into it. So but uh for being there for all of the times that I was there with him, um, you know, and my brother was also a stage manager on the um companies in California on the second uh second national company.

[1:04:30] Sasha Charnin Morrison: You know, we're and my husband, who we've been together for 42 years, and so it's like, uh, and he was a Broadway kid, so you need to speak to him. He's worked on great greatest, yeah. He needs he's worked with Julie Stein and all of these incredible. So, um, so we're very committed to moving the message forward.

[1:04:51] Marc Tumminelli: Great.

[1:04:51] Sasha Charnin Morrison: So whether it's the Tomorrow Project, whether it's the book, um, whether it's getting this, uh, you know, sung all the time for commercials and whatnot, whether it's, uh, the Troika tour, it's a commitment. And it takes, you know, it takes like a lot of time, but there's nothing more joyous than, you know, furthering the message, spreading the love.

[1:05:15] Marc Tumminelli: Well, the legacy lives on forever.

[1:05:17] Sasha Charnin Morrison: There's no stopping it, there's no stopping Annie. It's, you know, just something that will, I mean, is done, uh, probably every day somewhere in the world, you know. There's some middle school, elementary school, theater academy, professional production. There's no shortage of Annie, you talking about it constantly and knowing more.

[1:05:36] Marc Tumminelli: Okay, you know more about it.

[1:05:38] Sasha Charnin Morrison: I know a lot, but it's not like it's just in my head, and it's so weird because there are people who come up to me like, oh, you have the Annie podcast. I'm like, I talk to a lot of people who are not in Annie, but it's fine.

[1:05:48] Marc Tumminelli: Yes, we'll go.

[1:05:49] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Yeah, but every other picture is like somebody in a red wig.

[1:05:52] Marc Tumminelli: Well, because it's the gateway drug of every kid.

[1:05:55] Sasha Charnin Morrison: So like every kid that has gone on to stardom, it's like, did you get to do Annie somewhere? You know, it's like, right exactly, like everybody. Every first Taylor Swift, everybody's job.

[1:06:06] Marc Tumminelli: Yeah.

[1:06:07] Sasha Charnin Morrison: So we talked a lot. Yeah, when I met Taylor Swift, her mom said to me, you know, I worked with her when I was at US Weekly, and her mom said to me, you know, her first job was July in Annie. And I was like, oh my god, say it's in everyone's DNA.

[1:06:23] Marc Tumminelli: Yeah, I know we're a little over. Do you have time to do quick fire questions?

[1:06:25] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Of course, of course.

[1:06:26] Marc Tumminelli: Okay, here we go. What was your first audition song?

[1:06:30] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Oh my god. Oh my god, I wish I would have written this down. Okay, my first audition song was probably The Hard Knock Life.

[1:06:41] Marc Tumminelli: Great. Good song. Um, what was the first Broadway show you saw that you remember?

[1:06:46] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Air.

[1:06:47] Marc Tumminelli: Okay. You have to pick one: Annie original movie, Annie TV movie, or Annie Live.

[1:06:53] Sasha Charnin Morrison: I'm not counting the other Annie movie.

[1:06:57] Marc Tumminelli: Wait, were those the Annie movies? Did you just the real the three big movies?

[1:07:02] Sasha Charnin Morrison: So we have Annie Live, Annie TV movie, Kathy Bates, Annie original movie, Aileen Quinn. Okay, I guess I'd pick Annie Live because we worked on it.

[1:07:15] Marc Tumminelli: Right.

[1:07:15] Sasha Charnin Morrison: No, no. I, you know what? I can't. Can I pass?

[1:07:19] Marc Tumminelli: You can pass.

[1:07:20] Sasha Charnin Morrison: All right. Um, okay.

[1:07:23] Marc Tumminelli: Oh sorry.

[1:07:24] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Yes, you have an answer.

[1:07:25] Marc Tumminelli: Yes.

[1:07:26] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Okay. Yes. Okay. The first Annie movie because it's because we were fun and we were involved in it.

[1:07:33] Marc Tumminelli: And you made money.

[1:07:33] Sasha Charnin Morrison: And there we go. No, I did, yeah.

[1:07:36] Marc Tumminelli: Okay, great. Um, what celebrity has the best style?

[1:07:40] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Oh my god. Oh my god.

[1:07:43] Marc Tumminelli: Zendaya.

[1:07:44] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Okay. Um, a celebrity you would like to style that you haven't worked with.

[1:07:49] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Zendaya.

[1:07:50] Marc Tumminelli: Great. Um, casting you wish you could have seen in any production of Annie anywhere.

[1:07:55] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Any person, like any Miss Hannigan. I would love to have seen Elaine Stritch play Miss Hannigan. And I'll tell you why she didn't do it, if you want to hear that.

[1:08:06] Marc Tumminelli: Yes, okay.

[1:08:06] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Yes, duh. Okay. So she was living in London, right? And she, of course, was would have been the first choice for London. But she wasn't the first choice for Broadway. So I think that she made a very wise decision for her career in saying, not that I was gonna ever give Elaine Stritch advice, but I think she had told them that because she couldn't originate the role that she, uh, declined playing, um, Miss Hannigan, but that would have been insane.

[1:08:36] Marc Tumminelli: Yeah.

[1:08:36] Sasha Charnin Morrison: I love it. Um, favorite thing about the Bay Ridge Century 21.

[1:08:40] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Oh my god. Well, I loved the Bay Ridge Century 21, uh, which is not in operation anymore, but it's coming back. I don't know if it's coming back to Bay Ridge, but um, I just love that they had everything I wanted that nobody else wanted because, you know, uh, t-shirts were selling there when I was buying Dolce and Gabbana and Helmut Lang.

[1:09:02] Marc Tumminelli: Oh my god, I'm obsessed. What was your dad's favorite musical?

[1:09:08] Sasha Charnin Morrison: I'm gonna say Oklahoma.

[1:09:10] Marc Tumminelli: Okay. Um, do people believe you when you say your dad?

[1:09:13] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Wait, go back. Sorry. My dad's favorite musical is like a split. I think Oklahoma for everything that it was. And then I think he just really loved In the Heights.

[1:09:25] Marc Tumminelli: All right. Yes.

[1:09:26] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Okay. Um, do people believe you when you say your dad wrote Annie? Or are they like, you're lying?

[1:09:31] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Never they believe it. I mean, why would anybody lie? It's like the best, it's like the weirdest best thing.

[1:09:40] Marc Tumminelli: Okay. Did you have a terrible survival job? Well, I think you mentioned being a waitress was not ideal. Is there anything worse than that?

[1:09:47] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Uh, well, working my first job in fashion at Vanity Fair. After I said, you know, the first thing I was gonna do was go to Vanity Fair. That was my worst job, but it was the best because I was so entitled in my mind and so ambitious, and I was put in my place and fired, um, because I was entitled and ambitious, and then I learned everything that I needed to know from that first job.

[1:10:09] Marc Tumminelli: There you go. Thank you. Who was your high school celebrity crush?

[1:10:13] Sasha Charnin Morrison: You mean at PCS? Just like when you were like in high school, who were you who'd you have a crush on?

[1:10:18] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Oh, so William Morrison was this actor who was in eighth grade and I was in 11th, and I'm married to him.

[1:10:29] Marc Tumminelli: Oh my god! I love that so much.

[1:10:31] Sasha Charnin Morrison: All right. Um, who is your favorite Annie?

[1:10:36] Sasha Charnin Morrison: I don't even think you can answer it.

[1:10:38] Marc Tumminelli: Oh, damn. You could say who like lives in your heart.

[1:10:42] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Uh, Andrea for obvious reasons. Yes. A, because we're friends, B, because you know, you have to understand that something that's really interesting is that, you know, she created the sound, right? She created what the sound was going to be, which I touched on earlier. And it's very important to know that the reason why any of the kids kind of sound the way that they do is because of her.

[1:11:11] Marc Tumminelli: So for many reasons, you know, that, um, the fact that I adore her and love her and just actually just worked with her on something. She was doing her nightclub act if you were below, and I went to see her, and they had some, you know, costume malfunction the night that I went to see her, and I took her hands in my hands and I said, You're dressing like a nun. We need to change it. So I came the next night with just all of this stuff, and she wore it, and it changed a lot of things, and she looked, you know, incredible, like the star that she had.

[1:11:50] Sasha Charnin Morrison: The fashion, baby.

[1:11:52] Marc Tumminelli: Yeah, yeah.

[1:11:53] Sasha Charnin Morrison: But I think that, um, yeah, that, uh, yeah, she created that sound. Yeah, and that was, and it's very important to always pay homage to someone who, and that was natural, you know. That was, that was she sounds exactly the same now. I mean, it's, it was exactly, it's like crazy. There's nothing, you know, it wasn't like she went to vocal lessons, or I don't think she ever took a lesson in her life, honestly. She said her aunt Joan was the one that, um, she got that sound from.

[1:12:27] Marc Tumminelli: It feels right.

[1:12:28] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Um, are you a true crime follower? And if so, is there a crime you'd like to have solved?

[1:12:35] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Oh my god, I don't even, uh, I'm, I can't even answer that because I'm totally, you would need to be like you, yes, she has one. Uh, I wish, what could I have solved? Oh Jesus. No, no, no, no, no. I just, I am a true, true crime follower. Yes, yes, great. Yes, I just like the details.

[1:12:56] Marc Tumminelli: We love a detail.

[1:12:57] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Yes. I mean, we all want to know what happened with Jean Bonnet. I think that's gotta be.

[1:13:00] Marc Tumminelli: Oh my god, were we talking about that?

[1:13:02] Sasha Charnin Morrison: No, but I, it's in the front of my mind at all times. I'm like making a sandwich. I'm like, sorry, sorry.

[1:13:09] Marc Tumminelli: Oh my god, that's right, that's right.

[1:13:10] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Okay, all right. I'm gonna answer it like I'm actually giving you that.

[1:13:15] Sasha Charnin Morrison: I'm gonna answer it like I said it.

[1:13:17] Marc Tumminelli: Okay, great. So what crime would you like to have solved?

[1:13:20] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Jean Bonnet, hands down. I'm leaving all of this in, it's too good.

[1:13:25] Marc Tumminelli: Um, okay. Um, we're almost done. Um, what is one style or trend that you hope does not come back?

[1:13:31] Sasha Charnin Morrison: I should all come back. Because you know what? It all means something to everyone. And if you can make a work and make me rethink something that I was poo-pooing on, then I, you know, I like I just bought, I just bought cowboy boots yesterday. Now I didn't think that I would, I'm watching this, uh, 1883, you know, this incredible thing on Paramount Plus because that's where I work. I'm watching this thing and it's so incredible. And now all I want are cowboy boots.

[1:14:00] Marc Tumminelli: So, um, so people will probably frown on that. I probably will return them when they arrive. But, uh, if it, if you can make it work and make it great, do it.

[1:14:09] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Make it work. Have you ever left a show at intermission?

[1:14:12] Marc Tumminelli: Yes.

[1:14:13] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Several.

[1:14:13] Marc Tumminelli: Have you ever left an Annie production at intermission?

[1:14:16] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Never.

[1:14:17] Marc Tumminelli: Oh good. What was the last Broadway show you saw?

[1:14:18] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Oh well you know we're talking like pandemic. But sadly the last one that I saw I believe was Hedwig.

[1:14:31] Marc Tumminelli: Oh my god it was a long time ago.

[1:14:31] Sasha Charnin Morrison: I know, I know we gotta get you back to the theater.

[1:14:31] Marc Tumminelli: I know I, I gotta do it.

[1:14:37] Sasha Charnin Morrison: It's terrible. What is one thing you think little girls should know who are playing the role of Annie? That's a question I got from a bunch of people to ask you.

[1:14:45] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Oh that's so nice of them to even take the time to think about that. Um, you have to listen, you have to trust your material. You don't have to compete with the ones that have come before you because the thing is you make that role unique to yourself and you stay true to yourself and enunciate and know what you're singing and you don't have to scream. We're in a strange era of screaming shows, which I know my father would just absolutely, uh, you know, not be dislike.

[1:15:26] Marc Tumminelli: Yeah.

[1:15:27] Sasha Charnin Morrison: And I just feel like you have microphones now on your heads. You don't have to scream. You can just bring you, which is something that he would say, into the role. And um, and trust your instincts. Trust your instincts. And listen and listen to your director. Listen to your director, only if they're smart.

[1:15:48] Marc Tumminelli: Um, Sasha, you are a genius, and you have like this incredible story, and I'm so grateful you shared it with me and all of us. Can you tell the people where they can follow you to see what's up and also like what to wear and what not to wear and all that fun stuff?

[1:16:02] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Yeah, but the best place is probably Instagram. So my handle is @sashacharninmorrison, all three names. Um, and you, as I said, it's like, you know, just make it your own and don't listen to what anybody tells you. Just be you because there's, there's not another.

[1:16:23] Marc Tumminelli: Wow, you're incredible. Thank you so much.

[1:16:25] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Everybody loves you. All of these, all these orphan girls are like, oh my god, you're gonna talk to her. You're she's the best.

[1:16:32] Marc Tumminelli: So I love them.

[1:16:33] Sasha Charnin Morrison: You're so loved. And, uh, I just thank you so much for being here today.

[1:16:34] Sasha Charnin Morrison: Thank you.

[1:16:37] Marc Tumminelli: Thank you. Thank you, listeners. This podcast is produced by Alan Seals, Dory Berenstein, and the Broadway Podcast Network, and edited by Derek Gunther.

[1:16:48] For more information on the Little Me podcast, go to bpn.fm/littleme.

[1:16:53] And follow me on Instagram at @MarkTumminelli or on Twitter at @ThatTumminelli.

[1:16:58] And for more information on workshops, classes, and everything Broadway Workshop, go to BroadwayWorkshop.com.

[1:17:04] Thank you for listening.