![Newsies proved a big hit on Broadway, clocking up more than 1000 performances.](/web/20170214041401im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/c/e/2/m/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.gucbgk.png/1487039664865.jpg)
Ever heard of the New York newsboys' strike of 1899? Nope?
That is one reason why Australia has yet to see a staging of Newsies, composer Alan Menken and writer Harvey Fierstein's musical treatment of a touchstone event in the annals of American workers' rights.
![Alan Menken composed the scores for Disney's Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid.](/web/20170214041401im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/c/e/3/z/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.gucbgk.png/1487039664865.jpg)
The rousing story of a David-and-Goliath battle between guttersnipe paper sellers and the media giants of the age was a hit on Broadway, where it ran for two years. But no matter how rousing the story, how soaring the tunes, most local producers would see Newsies as a tough sell in a crowded musical theatre market. It's "just too American", said one local publicist.
Many would no doubt remember the misfortune that befell the now defunct musical theatre enterprise Kookaburra when it tried to mount a production of Floyd Collins (a musical about a man trapped in a Kentucky cave and the media circus that followed) in 2007.
But that doesn't mean Menken's Australian fans – those who love his scores for Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast or The Little Mermaid – will be denied the pleasure of hearing some of the composer's best showtunes. For one day only (February 19), the Tony Award-winning Broadway production of Newsies is being screened in high definition video in , Britain, Germany, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It is the first time Disney has filmed one of its blockbuster stage musicals for a worldwide cinema release.
"I'm really excited and pleased it's getting all the way out there," says Menken from his New York home. "I think we found a really exciting musical vocabulary to tell this story."
Newsies began as a film project, a 1992 Kenny Ortega-directed Disney flick starring the young Christian Bale as Jack Kelly, ringleader of the newsboy rebellion that brought the newspaper empires of William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer temporarily to their knees.
"It flopped!" Menken says. "The film did not do well at the box office at all even though it featured all these adorable young boys and great choreography. But for some reason it got taken up by a generation who saw it on VHS tape and on cable. The kids adopted it as one of their own. And when my daughters went to school camp, they said, 'Would you mind if we did Newsies, we'll transcribe the dialogue from the movie, we'll work it out'. There seemed to be this spontaneous desire out there to do this show."
Disney suggested Menken create a stage version of the show in order to capitalise on the so-called "stock and amateur" rights granted to community theatres and schools. At that point, no one believed it had the makings of a Broadway show, even with Menken's name on it.
"We did a production at the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey to inaugurate the show going into stock and amateur and suddenly we were getting great reviews and people were flocking in from New York to see it," Menken says. "So, much to our surprise, it was considered ready for Broadway."
Newsies opened in the Nederlander Theatre in New York City in March 2012 with Jeremy Jordan in the role of Jack Kelly. The show recouped its initial investment of $US5m in seven months, making it the fastest Disney musical on Broadway to turn a profit. Closing after 1005 performances, Newsies then went on to tour the United States until late last year. The February 19 screening was captured at the Pantages Theatre in Los Angeles with Jordan and other members of the original Broadway cast reprising their roles.
"Newsies has a passion to it, a heart-on-the-sleeve directness people respond to," Menken says. "It's also very physical and very exuberant. You might think it's ironic that Disney took on something about unions, about the empowerment of the working class, but I think they understood the infectiousness of it."
Newsies has a passion to it, a heart-on-the-sleeve directness people respond to.
Alan Menken
Menken, who returns to Australia in March for the Melbourne opening of Disney's Aladdin, is happy for the exposure but ambivalent about people becoming accustomed to seeing musical theatre in two-dimensional form.
"For me as a composer, the live experience is everything," he says. "Also, I get a share of royalties with a live audience and that is more to the composer's benefit. But at the same time having a film of the stage production does allow people to enjoy the stage craft and then, maybe, if the real thing is staged some day in Australia, they will go see it for themselves."
Newsies screens in Sydney at Event Cinemas and in Melbourne at Cinema Nova and Village Cinemas on Sunday, February 19.