Whoopi Goldberg Doesn't Consider Herself a Singer, But She's Happy to Do Annie

Whoopi Goldberg has conquered the worlds of stand-up, film, and even daytime TV. But now she’s got a new career in her sights: musical theatre star. The EGOT winner is taking on one of Broadway’s most beloved villains, the “Little Girl”-averse Miss Hannigan, in a holiday run of Annie at Madison Square Garden this month. The musical begins performances at the famed NYC venue December 4, and Goldberg stars in performances December 11–January 5.

“I don’t sing,” Goldberg admits wryly. “This is like the third time I’m singing, but that’s not my thing.”

But, of course, those other two times weren’t exactly in the shower. Goldberg had solos in 1993’s Sister Act and its sequel. And she’s even sung on Broadway before, becoming one of the first-ever women to play Pseudolus in Stephen Sondheim’s A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum in 1996.

“Stephen Sondheim okayed it, so I felt pretty good,” she says of the experience. “He understood that it’s not always the voice—it’s the intention.”

Since then, Goldberg has flirted with musicals a few times. She briefly starred in Broadway’s Xanadu as Calliope and Aphrodite in 2018 and was poised to reprise her film performance as Deloris Van Cartier in the stage musical of Sister Act in London’s West End, only for the latter to become one of the tragic losses of the pandemic.

Whoopi Goldberg as Miss Hannigan and Hazel Vogel as Annie in *Annie* playing the Theatre At Madison Square Garden Photo courtesy of MSG Entertainment

But, she says, these things have a way of coming back around. When the call came for her to star in Annie, Goldberg was game. The character is one of the canon’s funnier villains, which means Goldberg is not worried about people seeing her as a meanie. “Her villainy is desperation,” she says of the character, the child-hating orphanage manager who serves as the primary foil to the “Tomorrow”-singing title character. “That’s why people feel better about Miss Hannigan than they do about most villains. She’s in the middle of the Depression, and who knows what her life was like before that.”

Goldberg will be singing one of the Charles Strouse-Martin Charnin score’s most memorable numbers, “Little Girls,” a belty ode to the character’s hatred of orphans. The song, and the character, was made famous on stage by Dorothy Loudon, and on screen by both Carol Burnett, Kathy Bates, and Taraji P. Henson.

“It’s been interesting,” she says of getting her performance ready for opening night. “I’m just trying to not emulate what everyone else has done and trying to find my place in all of it.”

But one thing is for sure, Goldberg tells us. She will not be going method when it comes to her character’s hatred of children. “I have too many kids. There’s no way I can’t like them,” she says. And she’s not just talking about her actual children—she means her new co-stars, too. “These girls are not only wonderful actors, but they’re a great support for me, too,” she shares. “I told them I was rusty, that it had been a while since I’ve done this. They were like, ‘We got you.’ And they do. They’re helping me. It’s a great family.”