I am pretty certain this is the last year of the tour (for now). Although I am not sure that we have heard anything definitive so perhaps not. The rights to the show for community theatres, schools, etc have been mostly restricted for the entire run of this tour (since 05)but they are now open, starting in the summer. That is what leads me to believe that the tour is ending.
It is certainly possible that your high school did it legally and got the rights somehow. MTI did liscense some productions I think. I do know, though, that many productions were done illegally, either without liscensing/paying for the rights at all, or getting to the rights to the Annie Jr script and then doing regular Annie (Annie Jr is not permitted to have anyone in the cast over the age of 18) So your high school probably did annie jr and thats how they got around the restrictions.
Meghan, many productions of Annie have been done legally by community groups while the tour has been running. Licensing depends on how close the tour is coming to where you are, and how close in time your production is to any nearby tour stops. My daughter played Molly in a production of Annie last year that was fully licensed, because the tour was not stopping close enough to where the production was held to prohibit licensing. So I don't think groups were necessarily licensing Annie Jr. and then skirting the rules. Many full productions of Annie were properly licensed. Just go to the MTI website and you can see a list of currently licensed productions, even now while the tour is still operating.
which is exactly what I said. Many shows WERE indeed liscensed. But I also know of many that werent. I am not accuse you or anyone else of anything. I do however know of more than one production in my area that did do it illegally. There are some areas of the country where NO productions were permitted for the entire 5 years this tour has been around, and others that may have had no problem getting the rights. But for the most part, the show has been quite restricted.