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Courtesy of The Muny
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Courtesy of The Muny
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Courtesy of The Muny
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Courtesy of The Muny
The Muny's 99th season wraps this weekend with Disney’s Newsies the Musical. You have until this Sunday to catch it.
“It’s been a lovely way to exit,” says Mike Isaacson, The Muny's artistic director and executive producer. “It’s a very high energy show.”
While well-loved, the source material for the show was not critically well-received. If you need a refresher, the 1992 movie version was a box-office flop that was loosely based on the 1899 Newsboys Strike in New York City, pitting adorable and scrappy young newspaper hawkers against villainous and money-hungry publishers.
But the stage version has been a tremendous success. Newsies made its Broadway debut in 2012 and won Tony Awards for Best Choreography and Best Original Score (out of eight nominations).
“It’s fascinating. This movie is a touchstone for your generation,” Isaacson says of the youngest Generation Xers and the oldest millennials who make up the film’s most faithful fans.
If you’re a person of a certain age, a youthful Christian Bale playing Jack Kelly in the film might have been just as important and formative to you as David Bowie was as Jareth the Goblin King in 1986’s Labyrinth.
Disney, says Isaacson, received countless requests from schools to mount the show. “That’s really what propelled Disney to develop it for the stage,” he says. “They were getting so many requests, and they did one production. It was received so well, they took it to Broadway.”
Like most musicals written after 1990, the play is written in a very cinematic style. Alan Menken wrote the show’s music, Jack Feldman penned the lyrics, and Harvey Fierstein was the playwright.
The show includes short scenes and many locations, which make good use of The Muny's unique set elements: the turntable, pivoting balconies, a giant screen, and more.
“It’s been an extraordinary season,” says Isaacson. “The audiences have been really big and supportive. There’s been a real intensity of listening, of participation, from the audience.”
Newsies the Musical runs through this Sunday, August 13. It starts at 8:15 p.m., with an estimated run time of two hours and 20 minutes.
