The original "Little Orphan Annie" comic strip is now approaching 100 years old. The girl with a big heart and a hopeful outlook has charmed audiences in books, newspapers and magazines, radio and television, and even stage and cinema for all that time. It is easy for us to invest our own hearts in Annie's simple dream - to know her parents. She doesn't even care who they are - as long as they are hers. She reminds us of our own innocence - even as a parade of not-so-innocent characters moves ominously before us.

Good theater often depends on contrast. Annie might seem less innocent if we didn't have the Hannigans to compare her with. She wouldn't be able to move us to tears if we weren't laughing just a few moments earlier. Because of Warbucks, we realize how destitute she really is. Annie moves between two worlds that couldn't be more different - from the poorest to the wealthiest - between two homes that have nothing at all in common - except, perhaps, the radio. In America, we never stop rooting for the little guy, and during the Great Depression, the wonderful new medium of radio gave us plenty of little guys, including Annie, to root for.

But as captivating as the girl is, it is Annie's parents I find my thinking about the most. They are not brought to life in this play - yet I can't get them out of my head. How dark and sad to realize you have no other option than to leave your baby on a doorstep with nothing but a note and half a broken locket. I want them - and any parent like them - to know how well their special little girl turned out.

So, here is the story of a simpler time - before video games and airline travel; before television or terrorism - when radio was as great an equalizer as the Internet is today - the tale of a little girl who has nothing at all and who seeks nothing more than to know, at last, the warmth of a parent's embrace.

And who, by golly, pulled herself up and took herself out to find it.