As Annie continues this holiday season, lead actress reflects on her year as iconic redheaded orphan

A behind-the-scenes look at the Annie actresses getting ready for a production. Over the course of the year, the 11 girls playing the orphans have grown closer and stronger with each and every day, according to Asch.

Harper Rae Asch found out that she was going to play the iconic redheaded orphan Annie in the Stratford Festival’s 2025 production of Annie in September 2024. Now, over a year since that revelation, she is still kicking her heels across the Festival Theatre stage.

“It’s been going really good,” Asch shared with the Times in an interview just moments after a matinée performance wrapped. “I’m really excited that we've been extended, because we get to bring this into the holiday season, because the show is based around Christmas. And it's really exciting because we get to have all these festivities. The lobby's decorated for Christmas. And it's really exciting.”

Asch was five years old when she got the acting bug. She joined a new school and its production of How the Grinch Stole Christmas as an ensemble cast member. A year later at six years old, Asch got her first solo. It was sometime later, when she was nine years old, that she had her first professional gig outside of school. The rest, she said, is history. She landed the role of Annie in Stratford at 11, the same age as her character.

Asch has been coming to Stratford ever since 2023 to see performances like Twelfth Night, Something Rotten! and Wendy and Peter Pan, to name a few. In 2023, she saw Rent at the Festival Theatre, a memory that has stuck with her since.

“After the show, we got to meet Lee Siegel, he was one of the main characters in Rent,” Asch said. “And he took my phone, and he was like, ‘Hey everyone, it's Lee Siegel with Harper, and one day she's going to be performing here.’

“It’s really cool,” Asch went on to say about sharing the stage with actors she once admired from afar. “Dan (Chameroy), Laura (Condlln) and Jen (Rider-Shaw), I’ve seen them perform so much on the stage and I’m huge fans of them. They’re so inspiring to me. So it’s really cool to get to share the stage with them.”

Often described as an actor’s gym, Asch said that the biggest lesson she has learned while performing in Annie has been to treat every performance like its opening night. Afterall, she said, they want to give the audience magic even during mid-August, when daily performances start to wear on the performers.

Another thing that has come through this year has been her relationship with her castmates. Along with Asch, 10 other girls play the orphans in Annie, each bringing an immense amount of talent, hard work and dedication – dedication that should be seen, she added.

Following rave reviews, the festival announced the extension of Annie for an additional six weeks, with the production scheduled to wrap on Dec. 14. Asch said she is looking forward to performing the Christmas-abound show during the holiday season – and audience members should too.

“Who doesn’t love Christmas?” Asch asked. “I'm really excited that the audience will be in the Christmas spirit, the holiday spirit, and I think it will just be so exciting to again bring these new audiences in and to really get that Christmas spirit going.

“It’s such a festive and family show,” Asch continued. “It's set around the Great Depression, but Annie has this sense of optimism, which really sends a message to all of our audiences that, you know, ‘the sun will come out tomorrow’ and things will get better. And I think it's a big message of empowerment and hope. So I'm really happy that audiences have really enjoyed our show. I'm really happy that we've been extended because we get to welcome new audiences to come see our show.”

For more information, or to purchase tickets, visit https://www.stratfordfestival.ca/WhatsOn/PlaysAndEvents/Production/Annie.