Bath, NY performance was a crowd pleaser
By Mary Gardner-Ruch
Newsies the musical is based on the 1992 musical film Newsies which was inspired by the real-life Newsboys strike of 1899 in New York City. This strike was led by children to make a change in the way that Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst’s newspapers compensated their group of Newsboys. The strikers demonstrated across New York City for several days. They stopped the distribution of the two newspapers. The strike lasted for two weeks, causing Pulitzer’s New York World to decrease its circulation to 125, 000 from 360,000 papers sold per day. The price of the papers was not lowered but they forced them to offer buybacks from the Newsboys for papers that were not sold. This increased the amount of money these kids could make from their hard work.
Newsies Jr. was performed in Bath on Friday, May 12th, and two performances on Saturday, May 13th. It was an audience pleaser with singing and acting on a professional level. The props were amazing and if you haven’t been to a production at the Family Life Stage, you are missing out. Director, Robbie Lindmark welcomed the audience with a New York City accent and wished his Mother a Happy Mother’s Day, giving her credit for his success in theater.
Bethany Rech, starred in the play as Reporter, Katherine Plummer. Matthew Rech played a Newsie named Romeo. They are from Almond. Aryanna Khodorkovskaya played the Police Chief and was in the Ensemble Her sister, Natasha Khodorkovskaya, was in the ensemble. They are from Alfred Station.
Kudos to all the kids who acted, sang, danced, and put their whole hearts into this production. A big shout-out to the production team and the parents who sacrificed their time to support their kids in this effort.
