In 2012, Harvey Feirstein and Jack Feldman adapted Alan Menken’s classic Disney live-action film musical “Newsies” for the Broadway stage, which won a slew of Tony Awards and went on a national tour.
For Mingus theater director James Ball and the rest of the A.T.O.R.T. team which facilitates the student performances, the opportunity was immediately clear. This year, the first in which the rights to Disney’s “Newsies: The Musical” are available for high school performances, the tale of the 1899 newsboy strike is being brought to the Mingus stage.
“The movie came out when I was about 7 or 8 years old,” Ball said. “It was a bunch of teenagers living in New York and singing and dancing, and I think for me it was one of the first exposures I had of a bunch of kids that were close to my age singing in harmonies and dancing. It was one of those shows that sparked my interest into performance and doing theater.”
“Having it come out as a Broadway musical in 2012, and having the rights become available last March and I was like, ‘We’re doing it,’” he continued.
“Newsies” follows the story of Jack Kelly, a teenage newsboy who rallies the other poor, often orphaned, kids delivering papers for William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer in the late 1800s. When the publishers raised the price they charged newsboys to buy the papers they then sold to the public, over 5,000 of the young workers went on strike and called on the public to boycott the newspapers, eventually forcing the publishers to make concessions.
Mingus senior Alex Lloyd plays Jack, marking his first time center stage after several performances as part of the ensemble. Like Jack, a leader among the boys who learns to give up some of his independent streak in order to work together in solidarity with all the newsboys, Lloyd feels a sense of real pressure to give his all in the role, not just for his own sake, but for the sake of a much larger project.
“You get one chance per night to fix something or to try something else, so you’ve got to try everything and nail everything,” Lloyd said. “As a lead, I just feel like a really large pressure on me, because a large amount of the show is really counting on me to do well and succeed.”
Likewise, Lloyd’s counterpart Joanna Westling, who plays enterprising young news reporter Katherine Plumber, says she is striving to make this be her best performance, as she ends her Mingus theater career as a senior after appearing in plays and musicals since she was a freshman.
“Going from a little freshman who was part of ensemble to the lead female role my senior year is absolutely phenomenal,” Westling said. “I learned easily that you need to be humble. It’s a privilege that I’d never take for granted and I never would.”
Like the 1992 film, “Newsies” features not only a slew of songs and an extensive ensemble cast, but some high-level choreography, including not just the usual musical theater steps, but jumps, cartwheels, flips and extensive stage combat. Songs like “Seize the Day” and “King of New York” bring out huge ensembles, with tap dancing in the latter. For the students inhabiting the roles, the challenges of acting and singing are bolstered by an additional intense dance technique.
Mingus teachers have been planning for this for months. The A.T.O.R.T. program stepped up its dance instruction in advance of last year’s spring musical, “Crazy For You,” and teachers have been working to bring the kids up to the level of skill needed to do the complicated dance routines they had planned for “Newsies.” Last summer, the school held a theater dance camp to give students a chance to work on their skills. Before they even had a chance to audition, students had to spend a week learning basic dance moves for the show.
“It felt like boot camp. My calves became twice as big,” said Preston Chalmers, a senior at Mingus who is playing Davey in the show. He said he has spent two years working on his tap dancing skills as part of the theater program. Chalmers is heading to ASU for musical theater next year and believes that he got in through the dance skills he developed at Mingus.
“Even after all that, when I showed up for auditions, I thought, ‘This is a whole new level,’” Chalmers said. “My stamina has significantly increased. I’m much stronger in a lot of my dance moves. The transition from ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ to ‘Crazy For You’ was a huge jump, but I think we’ve maybe gone twice that going from ‘Crazy For You’ to ‘Newsies.’”
“We ask so much of these kids and they have not disappointed,” said Stephen Renard, a Mingus math teacher who choreographed the performance with his wife Carla. “We’re really always humbled by the amount of energy and trust and work they put into it. These kids put just as many hours in as any athlete in the school.”
Even when they are not dancing, the student actors find ways to take over the stage.
“Joseph Pulitzer does not dance,” Aiden Scotch, who plays the legendary publisher, said. Scotch worked heavily with assistant director Ashly Lawler to make sure that, even as the most stationary character, Pulitzer commands attention.
“I take what measures I can to make sure that I am the man on stage when I’m onstage,” Scotch said.
In addition to the usual theater tech work provided by Mingus students, the theater program started going above and beyond in allowing students to do it for themselves. Since the winter production of ‘A Christmas Carol,’ Mingus no longer rents costumes, but rather makes them in- house. Local seamstress and Mingus parent Lydia Collins works with a team of eight students to create a full closet of newsboy outfits — ratty and ragged, in period style.
“Some of them had never sewn on a button even,” Collins said. She said that her team of costumers came in with a wide range of skills that have only improved as they have had a chance to develop clothes for the whole ensemble. “There’s different levels but most of them have learned. They’ve progressed at least. Even if they knew something, they’ve learned more.”
“Newsies” opening night will be Saturday, April 6, at 7 p.m., with follow up shows on April 7, 12, 13 and 14. Tickets are $12 for adults and $11 for children if bought at the door, with a discount of $3 for tickets bought in advance. Tickets can be purchased at www.showtix4u.com/events/atort, in person at the MUHS bookstore or by calling the box office at 649-4466.
