‘Newsies’ at the Academy of Music

The set is a series of nine huge metallic boxes, stacked in groups of three, which represent the skyscrapers, tenement buildings, and elevated train platforms of New York City. They spin around and move forward and back. With scrims descending in front of them, they display projections of newspapers, illustrations of typesetting, and even indoor settings.

The show relies on ensemble more than individual players, so it doesn’t much matter that this touring cast lacks the charisma of the Broadway company. Christopher Gattelli’s choreography projects the masculinity and physicality of tough street kids, full of splits, backflips and handsprings in rousing numbers like “King of New York” and “Seize the Day.”

Alan Menken’s melodious score focuses on high-energy music without delivering a standout romantic ballad. “Something to Believe In,” the lovely Act II duet, fails to reach the emotional level of songs Menken wrote for Aladdin or The Little Mermaid. Menken and Feldman recently added a wistful song for a crippled boy confined in a refuge for wayward youths, “Letter from the Refuge,” which received its first performance in Philadelphia.

With its plucky poor kids fighting against wealthy entrenched power (the unabashedly pro-union script portrays cops as brutal enforcers for the employers), you might find the plot heavy-handed. But with its athletic dancing and spectacular set design, Newsies nevertheless provides an exciting theater experience. I left the theater smiling about this feel-good tale.

For a review by Naomi Orwin, click here.