Disney has set September 11, 2016 as the date to film the national tour of the musical Newsies for release in 2017, the company announced August 11.
The show will be filmed before an invited live audience. The in-cinema release and ticket-on-sale dates will be announced later this year. You can sign up for additional event announcements at Newsiesthemusical.com.
As previously reported on Playbill.com, Jeremy Jordan, a Tony Award nominee for his performance as rebellious paperboy Jack Kelly in the musical, will return to the role for the show to be filmed with other members of the original cast, including Kara Lindsay as Katherine, Ben Fankhauser as Davey and Andrew Keenan-Bolger as Crutchie. They will be joined by members of the North American tour, including Steve Blanchard as Joseph Pulitzer and Aisha de Haas as Medda Larkin. Additional cast from the Broadway and North American tour ensemble will also return.
Newsies was inspired by the real-life “Newsboy Strike of 1899,” when newsboy Kid Blink led a band of orphan and runaway newsies on a two-week-long action against Pulitzer, Hearst and other powerful newspaper publishers.
The stage version introduces seven brand new songs by the original team of Menken and Feldman, including a song written specifically for the tour, “Letter from the Refuge,” while keeping many of the beloved songs from the film, including “Carrying the Banner,” “Seize the Day,” “King of New York” and “Santa Fe.”
“From the very beginning, the stage adaptation of Newsies has had an exciting and entirely unexpected journey, propelled by the show’s passionate fan base,” said Thomas Schumacher, president and producer of Disney Theatrical Productions. “We are thrilled to be working with Fathom Events and to have Tony nominee Jeremy Jordan and members of the original Broadway company join the North American touring cast as we take Newsies on its next exciting chapter, reaching new audiences around the world.”
The musical took home 2012 Tony Awards for Best Choreography (Christopher Gattelli) and Best Original Score (Alan Menken and Jack Feldman) and was nominated for Best Actor (Jordan), Best Book (Harvey Fierstein), Best Direction (Jeff Calhoun), Best Orchestrations (Daniel Troob), Best Scenic Design (Tobin Ost and Sven Ortel) and Best Musical.
(Updated August 10, 2016.)
