Sebastopol girl brings real life to title role of 'Annie' at 6th Street Playhouse

Alina Kingwill Peterson, who stars in the musical “Annie” at Santa Rosa’s ?6th Street Playhouse, is a powerhouse singer, brilliantly at home onstage and a typical high-energy fifth-grader in her everyday life offstage.

And just like the famous character she plays, Alina is an 11-year-old adoptee.

The similarities and differences in the plot of the play and the life of the girl are too striking to miss, although it’s mostly differences. Alina and her parents, Sebastopol residents Daniela Kingwill and Bryan Peterson, have been together since Alina was an infant, for example. And while Alina’s parents are hardly “Daddy Warbucks” - Kingwill teaches English as a second language at Santa Rosa Junior College and Peterson is on disability - they do seem to “turn my sky to blue” for the perky, freckle-faced little girl who loves to sing.

“It’s pretty cool to know that we’re kind of the same,” Alina - who alternates with Evelyn Goodwin in the title role for the current production - says about her character, as she and her family chat over breakfast at a busy Sebastopol restaurant on a recent Saturday. “I’m the same age as Annie, too!”

Has there ever been another “real Annie?” The musical is a multiple Tony-award-winning play whose 1977 premiere ran for a record-setting six years on Broadway. According to the New York Times, Annie is produced between 700 and 900 times every year in the United States alone, making it tough to pin down for sure, but Alina may be the first adoptee, and the first adoptee of this exact age, to play the role of Annie.

Regardless of firsts, it packs an extra wallop to see the show knowing the backstory-and that’s on top of Annie’s already tear-jerking songs. Alina’s favorite song in the show is one of them, and her mom knows it.

“The very first time I saw Alina sing “Maybe” it just ... it’s a really beautiful song, but then also being her mom, being an adoptive mom, it felt ... deeper, I guess,” Kingwill says. “A lot of people get emotional on that song. Like her grandma.”

The performances in the playhouse’s G. K. Hardt theater bear this out, when the intermission lights come up on grown men and reporters shamelessly wiping their eyes.

The main difference between Alina and the fictional character is that she’s had contact with her birth parents, and with other members of her birth family, and her parents as well as the rest of the people around her are distinctively honest.

“Openness,” Kingwill repeats several times for emphasis. “There are a lot of alternative families in our school, including same-sex parents, transgender kids and other adoptees. I find it helpful, because it lends itself to openness. If you know that so-and-so has two moms, it’s normal, it’s normalized. And if you know that Alina is adopted, it’s just normalized.”

Peterson explains that two of his cousins were adopted, at a time when “closed” adoptions were the norm. Today, the “closed” approach has been strongly criticized by people who lived through it.

“When we were thinking of adopting Alina, one good thing was that we had all of this great literature by adult adoptees,” Kingwill says over the clatter of the brunch crowd. Those adult adoptees stressed the importance of truthfulness, she says.

“The more open you can be, the better for the child, because then they feel your honesty from the beginning.”

Unlike in the play, no one named “Rooster” is trying to swindle Alina for money to get to “Easy Street,” and it isn’t being rich that keeps this family happy.

“It’s laughter,” Peterson says, as they all burst into same.

“Inside jokes!” Alina adds, jumping up and down in her chair.

She’s strong-willed and outspoken, just like her red-headed counterpart, as she stage-whispers sarcastic commentary on adult conversations, tries to sweet-talk this reporter out of a writing implement, and attempts to use her platform for personal amusement and shout-outs to friends.

As the family walks away down Main Street, they’re still laughing, looking forward to an action-packed day of family fun. The afternoon show will be a success (The dog playing Sandy, while a bit squirrelly onstage, does not leave any unwanted contributions backstage, as it once did. Everyone’s happy.) The birthday party will be a success; pizza will be scarfed, ditto ice cream.

In the middle of it all is a talented girl who may be the first “real Annie,” but the character doesn’t seem to have defined her; she dreams of future roles.

“Oh my gosh, I really really really want Little Red Riding Hood in “Into the Woods” so badly!”

She’s thinking about tomorrow.