Newsies

I defy anyone not to have a euphoric high after watching this video version of Newsies. The excitement of the performance simply jumps out of the screen making it the best musical theatre stage performance captured live.

Newsies started originally as a 1992 Disney movie that bombed at the box-office, but when Disney released it on DVD it gained a cult following and requests to perform it on stage multiplied. So Disney decided to create a version for the amateur and high-school market. The plan was to open it regionally at the Paper Mill Playhouse and then send it on tour. But those plans were put aside when the critical reception at Paper Mill was ecstatic. Disney decided to take the production to Broadway.

Originally scheduled for a six-week run it eventually ended up playing for two years and clocking up 1005 performances. It finally went on the road in 2014 and played over two-years in 60 cities.

The movie was loosely based on the real-life historical Newsboys Strike of 1899, and had a score by Alan Menken and Jack Feldman. Both were on board for the Broadway outing which won a Tony Award for Best Score. Christopher Galletti also deservedly won a Tony for Best Choreography. It’s mind-boggling creative.

This version of the show was recorded in late 2016 when some members of the original Broadway cast joined the touring cast at the Pantages Theatre, Los Angeles, and recorded the show over three performances.

Brett Sullivan, who was the director who steered Billy Elliot Live to video, performed the same function on Newsies. Jeremy Jordan who played Jack ‘Cowboy’ Kelly, leader of the strike, on Broadway returned to play the part on video, as did Andrew Keenan-Bolger as the disabled Crutchie, Ben Frankhauser as the brains of the Union, Davey, and Kara Lindsay as Katherine, the tyro journalist who’s secretly Joe Pulitzer’s daughter. They are all wonderful in their roles, especially Jordan who’s a charismatic presence throughout. He’s a triple-threat performer who can belt with the best of them, dance like Michael Flatley, and bring pathos to the emotional beats. His ‘Santa Fe’, which is used thematically throughout, is just spine-tingling lovely.

Keenan-Bolger gets to sing a new song written especially for the tour, ‘Letter from the Refuge’, and like everything else he does, he underlines it with tender and honest clout. Lindsay works well as the female love interest, and as a ‘new woman’ finding her way in a man’s world. Her second-act tap-dance opener with the boys, ‘The King of New , is exhilarating.

Steve Blanchard is ruthless as the powerful Joe Pulitzer and gets to sing ‘The Bottom Line’, a song that delineates his philosophy with guile, whilst Aisha de Haas as Medda Larkin does a rafter-raising ‘That’s Rich’, which replaces Ann-Margret’s ‘My Lovey Dovey Baby’ from the film.

But it’s the boys’ show. Every time they’re on stage they lift the production. Galletti cast them for their individual abilities in dance and he gives them all a moment to showcase that individuality. They’re superb. As is Sullivan’s direction. The whole thing is a total adrenalin rush!

Peter Pinne       

Read more details about the streaming of Newsies at Playbill