Newsies the Musical!

Was at Jazz today, and it all started when choreo for Jazz 1 started.
Weicheng said it was going to be broadway-ish. I was ecstatic - I love musicals... But when he played the song, I wasn't familiar. The song apparently was from Newsies the Musical.

So, I got curious and so I started researching a bit more and I got hooked for a few hours.
Okay, on theater and musical lovers - Newsies was nominated for like 8 Tonys and won Best Original Score and Best Choreography (explains why Weicheng and Michelle absolutely love it)

Check out their Tony performance... absolutely spectacular!
The dancing on the newspaper and the jumps are quite amazing to watch! And the photograph at the end is real smart :) Good staging :)

So the music is by Alan Menken -- how can you possibly go wrong with an Alan Menken musical? He's done pretty much all the famous Disney productions - Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Hercules, Pocahontas and even newer stuff like Tangled. I mean, I grew up with my favorite song being Beauty and the Beast (Celine Dion & Peabo Bryson version)

Needless to say, my favorite Disney Princesses were Belle and Princess Jasmine - it always made me feel a little bit like a princess and that gave me the liberty to dream. 

Well, something that Disney does well that they've done with Newsies is that they manage to tap on to themes of dreaming big and making a difference. What I particularly like about Newsies is that it talks about young people being able to make a difference and stand up against injustice. While I haven't actually watched it on Broadway (I would love to), the idea of little kids watching this and having the notion of standing up for something introduced at that age - well, I like it. 

Now, on a different note, Disney does their marketing real well too.... 

There's a whole channel introducing the cast of characters and some backstage pass videos. 

These are some of my favorites:

Backstage Rituals :)

The Original Cast Recording

Specs, the sensitive one, was a Ballet-Trained Dancer!

(check out those turns!)

So... I have now added to my list of musicals I want to see if I could go to New York any time in the near future... Newsies!