NEWSIES National Tour Coming to Segerstrom Center, 5/17-29

Disney's NEWSIES will play an exclusive two-week premiere engagement at Segerstrom Center for the Arts with performances May 17 - 29, 2016 in Segerstrom Hall. Individual tickets for NEWSIES start at $25 and may be purchased online at SCFTA.org, the Box Office at 600 Town Center Drive in Costa Mesa or by calling (714) 556-2787. For inquiries about group tickets for 10 or more, call the Group Services office at (714) 755-0236. The 2 p.m. performance on Saturday, May 28, 2016 will include audio description, open captioning and sign-language interpretation.

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 1,005 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, including a song written specifically for the tour called 'Letter from the Refuge,' while keeping many of the beloved songs from the film, including 'Carrying the Banner, 'Seize the Day,' 'King of New York' and 'Santa Fe.'

Since the film's 1992 theatrical release and subsequent DVD release, NEWSIES has grown into a cult phenomenon, and for years had been the single most requested title of all the Disney musical films not yet adapted for the stage. (The film featured a screenplay by Bob Tzudiker & Noni White (Tarzan, 102 Dalmatians).

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

The Costa Mesa engagement of NEWSIES is presented by arrangement with Segerstrom Center for the Arts and is a subscription offering of the Broadway and Curtain Call Series.