Wil Fisackerly
Staff Writer
Newsies, the Tony Award winner for Best Choreography and Best Score will be coming to Orlando for a limited time. Newsies will be performing for one week, Jan. 27 through Feb. 1 at the Dr. Phillips Center in Orlando, Fla.
The Center for Student Involvement at Florida Southern College initially offered students a $20 price tag to attend the show and receive transportation to and from Orlando. Unfortunately tickets sponsored by the college have sold out but tickets can still be purchased online from $33.75 at www.drphillipscenter.org.
“We had 30 tickets and released them on December 1st,” said Alex Parsons, Program Coordinator for the Center for Student Involvement, “we sold out on January 12th. This is only our second musical we have offered through Discover Florida, and we had about the same demand as we did last year for Book of Mormon.”
Hallie Meara, a sophomore here at FSC, is excited to see Newsies again. “I’ve seen it two times on Broadway and have bought tickets to see it twice here.”
The stage musical is an adaptation from the film of the same name that was released in 1992.
Newsies featured actors such as Christian Bale and David Moscow. It featured a musical score was composed in part by Alan Menken, the musical mastermind behind the musical scores of The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin.
The story follows the real life story of the newsboys’ strike of 1899.A New York Times article from 1889 released that it was a youth-led campaign that pushed for the proper compensation for child labor of the newspaper hawkers. Without child labor or minimum wage laws, the boys were forced to defend themselves by going on strike for better treatment. Their efforts were successful and resulted in proper pay for the young workers.
When the film adaptation was first released in 1992, Newsies was a box office flop. The directing debut of Kenny Ortega made just under $3 million, miles away from its $15 million budget. It was nominated for several worst picture awards from satirical award shows.
Newsies found greater success in the musical theatre world, recently closing on Broadway after an outstanding 1,000 shows.
