Actresses ‘seize the day’ in energetic show

play review /// ‘Newsies’



BIG SCOOP—La Reina students stage the musical “Newsies” at the Thousand Oaks school. CARY GINELL/Acorn Newspapers

BIG SCOOP—La Reina students stage the musical “Newsies” at the Thousand Oaks school. CARY GINELL/Acorn Newspapers

There is something refreshingly brazen about a Catholic college prep school for young women putting on a production of the male-dominated musical “Newsies,” so when it was announced that La Reina High School in Thousand Oaks was doing just that, we had to check it out.

“Newsies” relates the true story of the New York newsboys strike of 1899, when an army of youngsters went up against entrenched publishing moguls to protest against an increase in the price of the papers they sold throughout the city.

The original 1992 Disney film musical was turned into a stage show in 2012, which won two Tony Awards, Best Score and Best Choreography.

La Reina’s production ran from March 29 to April 6.

“Newsies” is a difficult show to stage because of its large-scale, high-energy production numbers, requiring a lot of floor space to do it justice.

La Reina had the advantage of staging the show in the school’s gymnasium, which also serves as its theater. Instead of using the stage, director Robin Privat brought the production right onto the floor, appropriating half of the building and leaving plenty of room for the wing-to-wing cartwheels and for the large cast to cavort to its heart’s content. The bare-bones set included stairways on either end to expand the physical dimensions of the production.

Nearly all the characters in “Newsies” are male, but newsboy caps hide a lot of hair, so it wasn’t hard for the audience to suspend its disbelief with the mostly female ensemble. One exception was Daniel Roth (double-cast with Connor Reithmayr), who played the lead role of Jack Kelly, the charismatic, brash leader of the newsboys, who inspires and cajoles them into staging a strike when Joseph Pulitzer, the vindictive publisher of the New York Sun, raises the wholesale cost of the “papes” the newsies sell by 10 cents per hundred.

Kelly’s loyal second, Davey, was well played by Caroline Fazio (double-cast with Taylor Melton), while Davey’s precocious younger brother Les was given an adorable performance by Cecilia Catalini (doubled with Annie Pollon).

Jack’s love interest, aspiring journalist Katherine Plumber, played by Lauren Brown, is struggling to get off of the society pages to write real news stories and falls in with the newsies despite her conflicted relationship with Pulitzer, who she does not reveal is her father.

Vocal director Heidi Vass and the choreography team of Maggie McGowan, Stacey Pirozzi and Clarince Chui did yeomen’s work coaching the students.

Twelfth-grader Brown was especially good as Katherine, highlighted by a stellar performance of “Watch What Happens,” a half-spoken, half-sung musical soliloquy performed as she contemplates covering the protest against her father’s paper.

Kasey Mutz did a fine job as vaudeville performer Medda Larkin, who is sympathetic to the newsies’ cause and sings “That’s Rich,” a song of feminine moxie that could have easily been part of Mae West’s repertoire during her heyday. Cora Kulvinskas was convincing as Crutchie, Jack’s disabled friend, while Madelyn Wolfe proved to be a Rosie O’Donnell-in-the-making with her cigar-chomping antics as the feisty Race.

The production made great use of the animated projections supplied by Music Theatre International. A nice touch was the show’s program, produced as a full-size newspaper instead of a standard Playbill-style booklet, complete with masthead, reprinted stories from the actual 1899 strike and photos of the cast.

In the #MeToo-conscious world in which we live, it’s nice to know that a girls’ school can take on a show that features few female characters and make it work. In that regard, La Reina High certainly “seized the day.