Newsies knows its audience

Idea for a Broadway show: Gather a bunch of handsome, athletic, young (or young-looking) men who can dance masculinely and athletically while singing and winking flirtatiously at the audience. A hit? I think so! The distinctly high pitched cheering and squealing coming from the audience at the end of the big numbers and the equally high pitched cheering and whooping at the end of the show would indicate that someone had a really, really good idea on this one: Newsies The Musical.

Let's see. Who really adores Broadway musicals? People who adore cute boys adore musicals, that's who. Someone noticed that Billy Elliot was doing well in spite of the fact that no one has any idea what the heck the labor/union plot is in that show set in a coal mining town in Northern England. Just what are they complaining about in those British accents anyway? No one knows! But look at those adorable boys!

So, replace faces smeared with coal dust with faces smeared with newspaper ink, move from Northern England to New York City, and swap the British accents for the old-timey "dems" and "dose" of the Big Apple. Disney has even managed to give us a strike we can understand while humming along to the score.

Newsies, I tip my plaid newsboy cap to you.