“The things we do today will be tomorrow’s news…” Newsies is a movie musical directed by Kenny Ortega in 1992, featuring a catchy, high-energy soundtrack by Alan Menken and Jack Feldman. In 2012, the Broadway production of the same name debuted starring Jeremy Jordan as protagonist Jack Kelly and won Tony Awards for Best Choreography and Best Original Score. The story is based on the Newsboys Strike of 1899 in New York City, when politician and publisher Joseph Pulitzer raised the price of newspapers, and the newsboys of NYC (the “newsies”) organized a citywide strike to protest the decision. In 2017, the stage production was professionally video recorded with most of the Original Broadway Cast members, and the proshot became available on streaming services later that year. Several significant changes were made to the source material, such as the removal/addition of several musical numbers and characters.
In the proshot, “The Bottom Line,” “That’s Rich,” “Watch What Happens,” “Brooklyn’s Here,” “Something to Believe In,” and reprises of several of the original popular songs were added. Most of the soundtrack was kept, save two numbers that were combined into “That’s Rich”, performed by the same character (Medda Larkson). One of the two, “High Times, Hard Times”, won composer Alan Menken a Razzie Award for Worst Song in 1993, so it’s no surprise the directors removed it from the updated soundtrack! In addition, the lyrics of the remaining songs were rewritten or their placement moved considering the changes in the narrative and absence of certain characters and scenes. The most impactful of these is “Santa Fe”, an emotional solo performed by strike leader Jack about wanting to escape the life he feels trapped in. In the movie, it’s the first song after the big opening number (“Carrying the Banner”), but the proshot inserted a prologue to it before “Carrying the Banner” and relocated the full version to right after the fight between the newsies and the police much later in the story, where many kids are injured and Snyder carries off Crutchie. By having Jack sing “Santa Fe” at a low point of guilt over leading the newsies into danger, Broadway actor Jeremy Jordan highlights the insecurity of his character and gives him more depth than the classic ‘fearless leader brimming with confidence’, which is how Christian Bale portrays him for most of the 1992 version. The lyrics in the two versions are different because in the movie there’s a scene right before the song where Jack – an orphan – meets his newsie partner Davey’s family and has dinner with them. Because of this, the original lyrics reflect on the theme of ‘ideal family,’ and as the scene was removed in the proshot, the updated song focuses more on Jack’s feelings of helplessness at having been unable to save the rest of the strike members. In the song, he explains more thoroughly his motivations for wanting to leave New York City.
(Attention: this paragraph contains major spoilers!) The other main difference is the coalescing of Sarah Jacobs and Bryan Denton into one character: Katherine Plumber. In the movie, Sarah is Davey’s sister and she first appears in the aforementioned dinner scene right before “Santa Fe.” Her main role is Jack’s love interest, helping convince him to stay in New York rather than move to Santa Fe in the end. Bryan Denton is the reporter who approaches the newsies about an exclusive on the strike and eventually gets their story in the papers. They lose their faith in him when he is unable to publish an article detailing the violence they suffered in the fight with the police due to a printing ban, but he eventually regains credibility by helping with The Newsies’ Banner. In the proshot, Katherine takes on both roles, except, instead of being Davey and Les’ sister, she turns out to be Pulitzer’s daughter, a plot twist revealed in Act II. This revelation replaces Denton’s failure to print his second article as the event sparks the newsies’ distrust of the ‘reporter figure.’ Many fans view this change as positive for three primary reasons: first, it makes for one single, stronger character rather than two weaker ones. Second, it gives the main female figure in the story a role much more significant than the simple love interest. Katherine can relate better to the newsies because, being a young woman working towards a career in publishing in that time period, she understands what it’s like to feel insignificant in the eyes of the rich and powerful. Third, it prompted the addition of two popular new songs, “Something to Believe in” and “Watch What Happens”, which are both performed by Katherine and unique to her character.
To conclude, the million-dollar question is, of course, “Which is better? The movie musical or stage production?” There’s no right or wrong answer. Personally, I prefer the proshot because I think most of the things they changed from the movie were for the better. However, many fans are loyal to the movie because it came first and they feel as if the proshot ruined many aspects of the story and soundtrack that made Newsies unique. In any case, both versions do a wonderful job of teaching the audience that “courage cannot erase our fear; courage is when we face our fear.”