Broadway Review: Disney's 'Newsies!'

From fact to film to Broadway, Disney's "Newsies!" on stage in New York City is a mega-musical with energy to spare.

No singing mermaids, no dancing cutlery, no flying nannies, and definitely no anthropomorphized jungle animals. Disney Theatrical Group's newest Broadway eye-popper has benched its traditional fairy tale structure to serve up a red-blooded, heartfelt musical based on an actual turn-of-the-19th-century event: the 1899 strike by New York City newsboys, a.k.a. Newsies.

And, whoa baby, this big-budget open-ended run (despite mixed reviews) is nothing short of a high-octane bundle of crowd-pleasing charisma that has kids as young as 7 and 8 mesmerized—not only to the show-stopping singing and dancing, but to the deftly presented storyline pitting corporate greed mongers against spunky adolescent underdogs.

Because they were poor street kids—many of them orphans—to survive, the children hopped on the lowest rung of the urban working-class ladder and hawked newspapers—a medium controlled by rich, corporate forcefields like Joseph Pulitzer, who plays a pivotal role in the show.

From Film to Stage

Plot-wise, the musical serves up the rousing tale of Jack Kelly (brilliantly played by triple-threat actor/singer/dancer Jeremy Jordan), who persuades his circle of ragtag cohorts to stand up to Pulitzer and his colleagues after they up the rate for papers newsies must buy to sell to the public from 50 cents to 60 cents for 100 copies. Unionization and a better future are the goals; going on strike is the means.

Looking around the Nederlander Theatre during pretty much any performance of Newsies, one might assume the most enamored demographic to be tween and teen girls—the bulk of the characters are, after all, portrayed as an irresistible bunch of cute boys aged 11 to 18—but one would be wrong. While not nearly as vocally demonstrative (or giggly), the grownups in the audience, particularly those who grew up loving the 1992 Disney movie of the same name, are among Newsies’ biggest fans.

As for the film, going into the Broadway show I didn’t have a clue as to the cult clout it had until I scrolled through the more than 530 reviews on the show's website. A typical post would cite how much the fan du jour adored the film as a kid, how patient they had to be during the 20 years it took for it to be translated into a stage musical, and either how much they loved—or had problems with—the handful of changes introduced into the script by book writer Harvey Fierstein (Hairspray, La Cage aux Folles, HBO’s The Sissy Duckling) and Alan Menken (Beauty and the Best, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin), who collaborated  on the score with Jack Feldman  (animated sequels of The Lion King, 101 Dalmatians, as well as a number of other Disney projects). On the whole, they forgave changes because they were so blown away by the show overall.

The adult contingent also shared how much they got out of sharing the show with their kids and grandkids, one of the most poignant postings being: “…my 10 year old son with special needs, my 8 year old typical son and I all adored it equally.”

Who’s That Girl?

That said, theatergoers with a purist passion for the movie seemed most torn when it came to Katherine, a role unique to the stage production that basically replaced the aggressive reporter (Bryan Denton) played by Bill Pullman on celluloid while at the same time becoming Jack Kelly's love interest.