Today In Disney History ~ March 29th
Newsies The Musical is a Disney Theatrical Productions stage musical based on the 1992 musical film Newsies, which in turn was inspired by the real-life Newsboys Strike of 1899 in New York City. The show has music by Alan Menken, lyrics by Jack Feldman, and a book by Harvey Fierstein. The musical premiered at the Paper Mill Playhouse in 2011 and made its Broadway debut in 2012.
The musical opened on Broadway at the Nederlander Theatre for a limited engagement starting in previews on March 15, 2012, and officially on March 29, 2012. On May 16, 2012, Disney announced that Newsies was an open-ended engagement. The engagement was extended through August 19, 2012, after the first previews. The original cast of the Broadway production featured Jeremy Jordan as Jack Kelly and John Dossett as newspaper tycoon Joseph Pulitzer. The cast also included Kara Lindsay as Katherine Plumber, Capathia Jenkins as Medda Larkin, Ben Fankhauser as Davey, Andrew Keenan-Bolger as Crutchie, and Lewis Grosso and Matthew Schechter sharing the role of Les. The Broadway production cost about $5 million to stage. Newsies recouped its initial investment of $5M in 7 months, becoming the fastest of any Disney musical on Broadway to turn a profit.
Producers announced on August 14, 2012, due to his commitments with NBC’s Smash, leading man Jordan would exit the musical on September 4. It was also confirmed that newcomer Corey Cott (who became his alternate earlier in the month due to Jordan’s production requirements for Smash) would be his replacement beginning September 5.
The musical closed on August 24, 2014, having played 1,005 performances.
For more on newsies visit our “Mouse to Marquee” series
From Mouse to Marquee: Act 6, Scene 1: The Newsboys Leap to Life
From Mouse to Marquee: Act 6, Scene 2: The Cast of Newsies leaps to Life
TMSM Today in Graphic by Sherry Rinaldi DeHart; Wiki
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