Corner Canyon High Presents Disney's "Newsies" the Musical

Featuring a cast and crew of nearly 200 actors, dancers, musicians and technicians, Newsies performances are set Nov. 11-12 at 7 p.m., Nov. 13 at 1 and 7 p.m. and Nov. 15 at 7 p.m. in the school’s auditorium. Tickets go on sale Oct. 25 at cornercanyontheatre.com. Tickets are $10 in advance or $12 at the door.

The story is told through the eyes of Jack Kelly, a newsie who dreams of a better life far from the hardships of New York streets. The musical opened on Broadway in 2012 where it played for 1,000 performances before touring nationally. It won two Tony awards: Best Original Score and Best Choreography.  It remains one of Disney’s most successful Broadway musicals.

Newsies is a story about two competing newspapers Joseph Pulitzer’s “The New York World” and William Randolph Hearst’s “The Journal.” Both papers relied on legions of young sellers, “newsies,” between the ages of 11-15, to get their publications into the hands of customers. The cost of the newspapers was 50 to 60 cents for one hundred papers which assured these child workers a profit. A year later, however, the newsies found themselves eating the cost of unsold editions, and they had had enough.

On a humid summer day in July of 1899, the newsies assembled in Manhattan and organized a union. Unless the Journal and the World returned the prices, they would strike. The next day the newsies made good on their promise. The strike last until Aug. 2 when the newsies returned to selling newspapers with the publishers’ agreement that they would be refunded the cost of unsold papers.