News: Disney Theatrical Productions offer virtual theatre trip to Newsies for UK schools

Disney Theatrical Productions has announced that they will be offering a virtual theatre trip to schools across the UK with Newsies: The Broadway Musical.

Schools across the country will be offered a virtual trip with free access to the filmed stage version of the popular musical, with wraparound educational content. The programme is in partnership with local arts organisations and regional theatres to offer the opportunity as widely as possible.

Newsies will be available to watch for participating schools from 14 June to 23 July, with facilities being provided educational content to support learning in the classroom. Materials will include a study guide, video talkback with the US production team, and a dance tutorial video for the musical’s showstopper “Seize the Day”.

This initiative comes as part of Disney Theatrical’s Get Up and Go wellness campaign. With the impact of the pandemic on theatres and schools countrywide, Disney is committed to innovating new ways for students to remain engaged with the performing arts.

By providing this virtual theatre trip, Disney is investing in the next generation of storytellers and inspiring them to create the futures they imagine.

Set in New York City at the turn of the century, Tony Award-winning Newsies: The Broadway Musical is the rousing tale of Jack Kelly, a charismatic newsboy and leader of a ragged band of teenaged “Newsies”, who dreams only of a better life far from the hardship of the streets. But when publishing titans Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst raise distribution prices at the newsboys’ expense, Jack finds a cause to fight for and rallies Newsies from across the city to strike for what’s right.

Newsies is inspired by the real-life Newsboys’ Strike of 1899, when newsboys Kid Blink and David Simons led a band of orphan and runaway children on a two-week-long action against newspaper publishers Pulitzer and Hearst.

With music by Alan Menken, and lyrics by Jack Feldman, the 2012 original Broadway musical won Tony Awards for Best Original Score, and Best Choreography for Christopher Gattelli.

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