Theater News

Christopher Gattelli to Choreograph Newsies at Paper Mill Playhouse

Christopher Gattelli
(© Joseph Marzullo/WENN)
Christopher Gattelli
(© Joseph Marzullo/WENN)

Christopher Gattelli will choreograph the new Disney stage musical, Newsies, to run September 15-October 16, with an opening on September 25, at the Paper Mill Playhouse. As previously announced, Jeff Calhoun will direct the production.

Gattelli is currently represented Off-Broadway with Silence! The Musical, which he has both directed and choreographed. Among his other credits are High Fidelity, The Ritz, South Pacific, 13, and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown on Broadway. In addition, he will choreograph the forthcoming Broadway revival of Godspell.


The creative team will also include Michael Kosarin (music supervisor/vocal and incidental musicarranger), David Holcenberg (music director), Tobin Ost (scenic design), Jess Goldstein (costume design), Jeff Croiter (lighting design), Sven Ortel (projection design), and Randy Hansen (sound design).

Featuring music by eight time Academy Award-winning composer Alan Menken, lyrics by Jack Feldman, and a new book by four-time Tony Award winner Harvey Fierstein, Newsies is adapted for the stage from the live-action Disney feature film musical. The new stage version will contain both new songs by the original team of Menken and Feldman as well as many that they wrote for the film, which had a screenplay by Bob Tzudiker & Noni White.

Newsies is inspired by the real life ‘Newsboy Strike of 1899,’ when newsboy Kid Blink led the ragged orphans and runaways known as newsies on a two-week long action against Joseph Pulitzer, William Randolph Hearst and other powerful newspaper publishers. The musical centers on one newsie Jack Kelly, who dreams of a better life far from the hardship of the streets. But when Pulitzer and Hearst raise distribution prices at the newsies’ expense, Jack finds a cause to fight for and rallies an army of fellow newsies to strike.

For tickets and more information, click here.