On January 9th, members of The Beacon traveled to Red Bank with IB Theater and Voices to see Newsies at the Count Basie theater. I, Hayley Birn, went on this trip representing The Beacon. It was a fun filled day with us learning more about the Newsies story.
Newsies is based on the true story of a group of paperboys going on strike in 1899 against the newspaper publisher Pulitzer who is raising the prices of newspapers. The main character is Jack Kelly, played by Nick Lutz in this production, who did a phenomenal job of portraying the desperate paperboy fighting for the working kids of New York City. Jack Kelly befriends two new paperboy workers, Davey and Les (played by Aidan Philipson and Athena Barrett), who help Jack in his strike against the head publisher Pulitzer. In their fight, Jack meets Katherine Plumber (played by Everly Coleman) who he eventually ends up falling in love with. All actorsin this show did a wonderful job at not only singing but truly connecting with their characters and the audience. Count Basie always does a wonderful job at creating such breathtaking performances!
Afterwards, we all went to Robinson Ale House and had a wonderful meal together. A big thanks to Mrs. Koontz, Mrs. Ross, and Mrs. Patberg for planning this trip!
(For those interested, here is a digital copy of the Playbill! https://thebasie.org/newsies25/ )
