Disney announces open auditions for West End transfer of Newsies

Open auditions will be held later this month for the West End transfer of Disney musical Newsies, it has been announced.

Producers are seeking males aged 16-to-22 with “excellent ballet technique”, with the ability to “tap and sing well”. Auditions will be held at Pineapple Dance Studios on 17 June (registration from 9.15am).

Casting director Jill Green said: “We are beginning a search to find
extraordinary dance talent. The award-winning choreography by
Christopher Gattelli requires energetic male dancers with excellent
ballet technique, acrobatic skills, tap dancing, and more. It will be
exciting for the team to meet talented men from across the country at
these open auditions.”

Precise dates and venue for the transfer are still to be announced, but sources indicated recently that Disney are “trying to secure either the Piccadilly or the Savoy theatres” for Spring 2014.

Newsies, which premiered on Broadway last year, is inspired by the real-life Newsboy Strike of 1899. Set in New York City at the turn of the century, the story centres on 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.

With a book by Harvey Fierstein, the show, adapted from the 1992 film of the same name, contains new songs by the original team of Alan Menken and Jack Feldman while keeping many of the beloved songs from the film, including “Carrying the Banner”, “Seize the Day”, “King of New York” and “Santa Fe”.