Newsies: stage vs screen

Disney's Newsies (1992), directed by Kenny Ortega and starring Christian Bale as Jack Kelly, was already a musical, with songs by Alan Menken and Jack Feldman. The film flopped at the box office, then found a cult following on home video. The Broadway version, which opened in 2012 with a book by Harvey Fierstein, keeps the 1899 newsboys' strike and most of the songs but changes several characters and the ending. Here are the main differences.

Stage

Broadway musical (2012)

Screen

Newsies (1992), directed by Kenny Ortega

1. The movie is already a musical

Unlike many screen-to-stage pairs, this one starts with a movie musical. The 1992 film already had Menken and Feldman's "Carrying the Banner," "Santa Fe," "The World Will Know," "Seize the Day," "King of New York," and "Once and for All," and the Broadway show keeps all six. The stage version adds new numbers and reworks the story, rather than turning a straight film into a musical.

2. Katherine Plumber replaces Sarah and Denton

In the film, the reporter covering the strike is Bryan Denton (Bill Pullman), and Jack's love interest is Sarah Jacobs (Ele Keats), Davey's sister. The musical drops both and gives their jobs to Katherine Plumber, a young reporter who falls for Jack and turns out to be Pulitzer's daughter, writing under a pen name. Her songs include the solo "Watch What Happens" and the duet "Something to Believe In" with Jack.

3. Jack is an orphan and an artist

The film's Jack Kelly is revealed in court to be Francis Sullivan, whose mother is dead and whose father is in jail. The stage Jack is an orphan who escaped the Refuge and has a talent for drawing: he paints backdrops for Medda's theatre, and his drawings of the abuse inside later help persuade Governor Roosevelt to shut the Refuge down. Both versions keep his dream of escaping to Santa Fe, sung in "Santa Fe."

4. Crutchie gets a new spelling and a bigger story

The film's Crutchy (Marty Belafsky) is grabbed by Pulitzer's enforcers, the Delancey brothers, and locked in the Refuge run by the corrupt Snyder. On stage, Crutchie is arrested and badly beaten when the newsies' protest is broken up, then taken to the Refuge. His letter to Jack from inside, "Letter from the Refuge," was added for the national tour, not the original Broadway staging.

5. Medda gets one song instead of two

Ann-Margret played Medda Larkson in the film, singing "My Lovey-Dovey Baby" and joining "High Times, Hard Times." The musical renames her Medda Larkin and replaces both songs with a single new number, "That's Rich." She runs a vaudeville theatre that shelters the newsies and hosts their rally, and Capathia Jenkins originated the role on Broadway.

6. New songs for Pulitzer and Brooklyn

The stage show adds "The Bottom Line," in which Pulitzer and his staff lay out their side of the price fight. Spot Conlon, leader of the Brooklyn newsies, arrives at the rally with the new "Brooklyn's Here." Katherine's "Watch What Happens" and the Act Two duet "Something to Believe In" are also new to the stage, while the film's Jacobs family dinner and its "Patrick's Mother" moment are gone.

7. A different ending for the strike

In the film, Roosevelt arrests Snyder, frees the children, and talks Jack out of leaving for Santa Fe. On stage, he backs the newsies after reading their own paper and forces Pulitzer to agree to buy back unsold papers. Pulitzer then offers Jack a job as a political cartoonist, and Jack stays in New York and accepts.

8. A box-office flop becomes a Tony winner

The 1992 film grossed about $2.8 million in the United States against a $15 million budget and won a Golden Raspberry for Worst Original Song, for "High Times, Hard Times." The stage show ran 1,004 performances at the Nederlander Theatre and won the 2012 Tony Awards for Best Original Score and Best Choreography. Disney also released a filmed stage performance in 2017.

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