Composer
Alan Menken and lyricist
Jack Feldman (both Tony Award-nominated for Best Score) and
Harvey Fierstein (nominated for Best Book of a Musical) recall the process of taking the Disney cult film "
Newsies" and adapting if for the musical theatre. With threats from his nephews that he'd best not mess up the story, Fierstein added new plot points and fresh characters, strengthening scenes and supporting the songwriters' ability to build new songs out of the tale of 1890s newsboys. Menken and Feldman exploited songs from the film and added new ones, sometimes creating multiple versions of songs until they all came together in a unified score. To hear from fellow
Newsies nominee Jeremy Jordan, click
here. To see the
Newsies Playbill, click here.