Newsies

 “From the award-winning composer of The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast.”

These were the only words I needed to hear in 1992 to know that Newsies was going to be my new favorite movie. The Little Mermaid was the first movie to earn the title of “my favorite”, and the fact that the man who was the composer (a word that meant nothing to nine-year-old me) of that movie was associated with Newsies already made it a classic in my opinion. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see it in theaters and had to wait until it came out on VHS so we could rent it.

I remember watching Newsies for the first time at my grandparents’ house. The only other thing I remember from that first viewing was that Newsies was the most boring movie I had ever seen and I was disappointed in believing the ad I saw on TV.

I wasn’t the only one to not enjoy Newsies very much upon first viewing. With a budget of 15 million dollars, Newsies failed to make even a fifth of it back during its theatrical run. Disney had hoped that the film would revive the dormant live-action musical genre at the cinema.

It didn’t.

Nearly 20 years later, in 2011, a stage version of the musical premiered at the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey, where it ran from September 25 to October 16. In March of 2012, it made the transition to Broadway. In August 2014, after 1,004 performances, Newsies closed. During its first seven months on Broadway, it earned back its $5 million budget, making it the fastest of any Disney Musical to turn a profit.

The journey to Broadway was an interesting one. It began with a generation of kids discovering the movie on the Disney Channel and falling in love with it. Those kids began requesting stage versions of the film to perform at school and summer camp, but when there was no official stage version, people began making their own versions – including composer Alan Menken’s daughter’s summer camp.

A stage version was previously attempted, but it wasn’t until Harvey Fierstein came into the picture that all of the pieces started coming together. According to lyricist, Jack Feldman, Harvey’s ideas were so fresh that they made perfect sense for a stage version and made the whole adaption process a lot smoother.

A national tour of the show began two months after closing on Broadway. Additionally, London’s Off-West End, Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre became the home of an immersive, in-the-round, production of Newsies in November of 2022. Also in 2022, a Junior version of the show began. This is a one-hour version of the show, which cuts several songs and is performed by middle and junior high school classes.

Disney released Newsies on VHS in 1992, DVD in 2002, and Blu-Ray in 2012. After the DVD came out and I had heard about the Broadway version, my interest was once again piqued and I decided to watch the movie composed by Alan Menken and see if my opinion had changed. I didn’t love the film. What I did love was the music and choreography and knew I had to see the stage version. Eventually, the national tour came an hour away from where I live so I went to see it.

I didn’t love it the first time I saw it, but I did enjoy it. By this point, I had seen the original film several times, so when the characters of Sarah Jacobs and Bryan Denton were combined into the composite character, Katherine Plumber, I found myself thrown by that change in the story. After listening to the soundtrack roughly a hundred times and watching the stage version again I realized that Katherine Plumber is my favorite character in Newsies, and her addition, plus the new songs, are what help the stage version soar above the film version. Combining those characters into one – a female journalist that just so happens to be (decades old spoiler) the daughter of the man the Newsies are fighting against, plus the main character's love interest, moved Newsies to the next level (even if it was a bit cliché). Not to mention the fact that Katherine gets what, in my opinion, is the best song (and future tattoo inspiration) in the whole show. During her solo of ‘Watch What Happens’ Katherine sings, “Their mistake is they got old. That is not a mistake we’ll be making, no sir, we’ll stay young forever.” Not only is it my favorite song in the show, it’s the motto of a generation.

After hearing that song – and seeing the stage version – Newsies had finally lived up to what I wanted in 1992, the first time I saw the trailer for it on TV. It had bypassed RENT as my favorite musical and has yet to be surpassed.

I’ve watched both the film and recorded stage versions of Newsies countless times, but every time I watch it, one question can’t help but cross my mind. How realistic is this?

The biggest change in the Disney version from the real Newsboys strike of 1899 is the character of Jack Kelly. The main character in the Disney version is an amalgamation of several historical people from the strike, including Kid Blink, who was featured in the film, but not the stage version. There were other real strikers included in the film and stage musical, such as Racetrack Higgins and Spot Conlon (Brookyln’s here!). And then there is Katherine Plumber, who, as mentioned previously wasn’t in the film version. The romantic lead in the stage musical was inspired by both Pulitzer’s daughter, Katherine Ethel, who died when she was two in 1884, and American journalist, Nellie Bly.

Another big change between reality and the Disney versions is that there were many newsgirls, in addition to newsboys, that participated in the strike. Recent productions of the show have cast more female and gender-neutral performers in the roles of newsies to remedy this inaccuracy.

Both the original film and a filmed version of the Broadway show are currently streaming on Disney+. Let us know in the comments which version you prefer and your favorite song from the musical.