Picture: Deen van Meer
Schools across the UK are being offered free access to Disney Theatricals Productions’ filmed stage version of the Tony Award-winning musical Newsies.
Featuring wraparound educational content, Newsies: The Broadway Musical will be made available to participating schools to view between 14 June and 23 July 2021. Produced in partnership with local arts organisations and regional theatres, the accompanying materials will include a study guide, a video talkback with the US production team and a dance tutorial video for the musical’s hit song ‘Seize the Day’ as part of Disney Theatrical’s Get Up and Go wellness campaign.
Commenting on the initiative, Disney Theatricals’ education and outreach manager Nancy Shakerley said: “Access to theatre and the arts should be the right of every child. It felt important this year when schools are unable to schedule theatre trips, to find a way to provide the stimulus of live performance to every student. With our award-winning production of Newsies, we have the opportunity to share a production never seen in the UK, to begin new thoughts and conversations, but most of all to bring the joy that only theatre can provide.”
Based on choreographer Kenny Ortega’s 1992 film and produced by Disney Theatrical Productions, Newsies: The Broadway Musical, features a Tony Award-winning score with music by eight-time Academy award winner Alan Menken (The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin) and lyrics by Jack Feldman. The musical which made its Broadway debut in 2012 features Tony Award-winning choreography by Christopher Gattelli, and book by four-time Tony Award winner Harvey Fierstein (Kinky Boots).
Filmed live at Hollywood’s Pantages Theatre Newsies: The Broadway Musical features original Broadway cast members including Tony Award nominee Jeremy Jordan, Kara Lindsay, Ben Fanhauser and Andrew Keenan-Bolger. The Broadway contingent was joined by North American tour stars Steve Blanchard, Aisha de Haas and Ethan Steiner along with members of both ensembles.
One of the most popular films in the Disney home viewing catalogue, the original film which was inspired by the true events during the ‘Newsboy Strike’ of 1899 when ordinary working class people took on the might of publishing titans Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst.
Angela Thomas
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