The World Will Know About Newsies The Musical
As a girl in Junior High, I was not what people would call, “Cool”. I had really big eyebrows. So this post is all about how me and my big eyebrows would go home from school everyday in the eighth grade and watch Newsies. Newsies is a Disney musical that premiered in 1992 and was considered a box office flop. I didn’t watch it in the theater. I did not see how a musical about boys selling newspapers would be appealing to me. It was not until Newsies was on the Disney channel that I watched it for the first time, taped the next showing on a VHS tape and watched it nonstop. I mean nonstop. My sister to this day hates the movie because of how our only TV in the house was always playing Newsies. What’s showing in the LeMaster’s house on Monday? Newsies. What about Tuesday? Newsies, followed by an encore showing of Newsies. You get my drift. The good thing was that I wasn’t alone. My friend Jenny was also taking over her family’s one television set.
So when my friend Stephanie saw the Macy’s Day Parade this last Thanksgiving and discovered that Newsies was being made into a Broadway musical, it took her about six minutes to have our flights and hotel booked. Steph, Rachel (Steph’s sister), Jenny and I were lucky enough to see Newsies on Broadway the opening weekend. I can not explain the excitement of this event. Jenny and I cried several times, people were screaming like it was a Madonna concert and the young boy sitting behind me admittedly peed his pants a little. It was incredible. The singing was amazing but the dancing, jumping, flipping and spoon playing blew my mind. I’m not sure if it is my love for Newsies that made it the most wonderful Broadway show I’ve ever seen or because it really was that incredible. I think it was a little of both. It may have been four women in their thirties sitting in the Nederlander Theatre last night but it felt like a row full of our eighth grade selves watching our old VHS tapes come to life.
If you have any love for Newsies or for Broadway musicals, I would recommend not for you to walk, not for you to run but for you to pirouette to Manhattan and see it! You will not be disappointed! Just ask the boy sitting behind me, it’s worth peeing your pants over!
My Life With Freckles 