West High to put on production of Disney’s ‘Newsies Jr.’

The Tony Award winning musical tells the story of Jack Kelly, a charismatic newsboy and leader of a band of teenaged “newsies,” who dreams of a better life far from the hardship of the streets.

However, when publishing titans Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph raise distribution prices at the newsboys’ expense, Jack rallies newsies from across the city to strike against the unfair conditions and fight for what’s right.

Led by Jack and independent, young newspaper reporter Katherine Plummer, the Newsies form a union and organize a strike against the greedy publishers of the New York World.

Director and Theatre Arts Teacher Jason Todd and his students have been preparing for this show for the past two months.

“To get this show up and running, the students have invested a great deal of time into preparing for it,” he said. “This is our first production, and we hope that people will come out and wish us well as our students learn and grow from this educational endeavor.”

“This is the first time most of our cast members have performed in front of a live audience and consists of Theatre Arts students from grades 9-12.”

Todd said that although this version is shorter than the original musical, viewers will still get the story they know and love.

“Disney’s Newsies Junior is a scaled-down hour-long version of the classic Broadway show. It provides the audience with an abridged version of the story and the musical numbers and primarily hits the highlights of the original show.”

West High Choir Director Kaitlyn Younger was music director for this production, and Todd and students helped create choreography.

The shows runs Dec. 9 at 7 p.m., Dec. 10 at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. in the West High Auditorium and costs $5 per person.