Five Things You’ll Be Glad Newsies the Musical Changed From the Movie

In fifth grade, on a particularly slow day at school, our teacher showed us an entertaining movie on the Newsboys Strike of 1899. This movie was Newsies, and from then on, that movie became a part of my life. I knew Christian Bale as a song and dance man before I knew him as Batman (and you can imagine how this influenced my Dark Knight experience). When I heard that they were transforming Newsies into a musical, I was ecstatic but worried. I feared that they’d change the movie too drastically and I’d end up hating it merely out of spite. Now that I am older and wiser, I know that all of these changes are for the better. And that’s why I’m here to give you a list of the top five things that you’ll be glad were changed or left out of Newsies the Musical.

5. Teddy Roosevelt is way cooler on Broadway – Teddy Roosevelt: the ultimate deus ex machina. In the movie, he kind of shows up and waves to a few people and then leaves. His role in the Broadway musical is so much cooler. You have something to look forward to if you’re seeing this show.

4. No ‘High Times Hard Times’ – Ann-Margret is cool and all, but her songs in the movie were definitely marked as low points. ‘High Times Hard Times’ is the lesser of two evils, if only because we get great reaction shots of the newsies. Still, it won’t be missed.

3. Sarah Jacobs and Bryan Denton have been combined to form Katherine Plumber – While Bill Pullman and his character (Denton) will be greatly missed, you should be really glad that the musical wrote out Sarah Jacobs (Davey’s sister and Jack Kelly’s love interest). The new combined character, Katherine Plumber, has a much juicier and more active role. It’s way better.

2. No spinning on fans – So this part was really cool in the movie, but it’s just dangerous. And no one wants an injured actor – you’re going to see Newsies, not Spiderman.

1. No ‘My Lovey Dovey Baby’ – As mentioned before, the songs written for Ann-Margaret’s characters are, to put it nicely, horrible. ‘My Lovey Dovey Baby’ is the lowest of the low, so thank the stars that it’s not included in the Broadway show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yP7Tu9wSA_c

– Caroline