THE LION KING, NEWSIES Tours Set Box Office Records in Chicago, San Antonio

The North American tours of NEWSIES and THE LION KING broke records for a nine-performance week in their respective cities, Chicago and San Antonio, for the week ending January 4, 2015.

NEWSIES set a record for the highest-grossing week in Chicago theatrical history with a gross of $2,012,723 at The Oriental Theatre for nine performances.

THE LION KING broke the house record at The Majestic Theatre in San Antonio for the highest-grossing week with a gross of $1,991,904 for nine performances.

NEWSIES, the new American musical, features a Tony Award-winning score with music by eight-time Academy Award winner Alan Menken and lyrics by Jack Feldman, a book by four-time Tony Award winner Harvey Fierstein and is produced by Disney Theatrical Productions, NEWSIES is directed by Tony nominee Jeff Calhoun and choreographed by Christopher Gattelli, who won a 2012 Tony Award for his work. The entire creative team has reunited to bring the break-out smash musical to audiences across North America.

When it opened on March 29, 2012 NEWSIES was intended for a Broadway run of just 101 performances. The show's fiercely devoted fans had other ideas, however; they propelled the show to a run of 1005 performances, attendance of more than 1 million and a gross of over $100M.

While on Broadway, NEWSIES set and broke seven Nederlander Theatre house records and became the highest-grossing show from the 2011-12 Broadway season. The show received 23 major theatrical nominations -- including eight Tony Award nods -- and won Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards for Score and Choreography.

Set in New York City at the turn of the century, NEWSIES is the rousing tale of 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.

NEWSIES is inspired by the real-life 'Newsboy Strike of 1899,' when newsboy Kid Blink led a band of orphan and runaway newsies on a two-week-long action against Pulitzer, Hearst and other powerful newspaper publishers.

The stage version introduces seven brand-new songs by the original team of Menken and 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.'

For more information, visit NewsiesTheMusical.com/Tour, Facebook.com/Newsies and Twitter.com/Newsies.

In its 18th year, The Lion King remains ascendant. Since its Broadway premiere on November 13, 1997, 22 global productions have been seen by more than 75 million people and, cumulatively, run a staggering 112 years. Produced by Disney Theatrical Productions, The Lion King is only the second show in history to generate five productions worldwide running 10 or more years. Translated into seven different languages (Japanese, German, Korean, French, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese), productions of The Lion King can currently be seen on Broadway, London's West End, Hamburg, Tokyo, Madrid, Sao Paulo, Sydney, Australia and on tour across North America, the U.K., and Japan. The Australian production marks the tenth concurrent worldwide production of The Lion King, the highest number of productions running at any one time in the show's history. Having played 19 countries on every continent except Antarctica, THE LION KING's worldwide gross exceeds that of any entertainment title in box office history.

For more information worldwide, visit LionKing.com.

Photo by Deen van Meer.