Newsies: The Heart Behind the Headlines launches Paramount’s new panel series on Saturday, September 28, from 5:30 pm. to 6:30 p.m., in the new JoAnne McKee Studio Theatre, Paramount School of the Arts, 20 S. Stolp Ave., in downtown Aurora.
(left) Archival image from the New York Newsboys Strike of 1899: (right) photos of Paramount Theatre’s current production, Disney’s Newsies.
Paramount’s Broadway Panel Series events are free, but reservations are recommended as space is limited. RSVP to school@paramountarts.com or call (630) 896-6810.
Paramount’s first panel syncs with the theater’s 2019-20 Broadway Series opener, Disney’s Newsies, the popular family musical inspired by the real-life Newsboys Strike of 1899 in New York City. At Newsies: The Heart Behind the Headlines, audience members, Paramount artists and distinguished guest panelists will delve deeper into the history, themes and continued resonance of Newsies and its true story of scrappy, turn-of-the-century newsboys hawking a tycoon’s newspaper, while barely making enough to survive.
Paramount’s Newsies panel includes Jim Corti, Paramount Theatre Artistic Director and director of Newsies; Francesca Morgan, a history professor at Northeastern Illinois University and expert on streetcorner newsboys in American cities and other forms of child labor; and Susan Campbell Bartoletti, author of Kids on Strike, a book about the newsboy strike of 1899.
The new Broadway Panel Series is programmed by Andrea Pikscher, Education and Community Engagement Coordinator, Paramount Theatre. For more information on Paramount’s education and community programming, including the full slate of performing arts classes now on offer for newborns to adults at the new Paramount School of the Arts, visit www/ParamountSchool.com or call (630) 896-6810.
Newsboys go on strike to show a greedy publishing tycoon they’re not going to be pushed into the gutter in Disney’s Newsies, playing now through October 20, 2019 at Paramount Theatre, 23 E. Galena Blvd. in Aurora, Illinois. Jim Corti directs the fleet-footed family musical inspired by the real-life Newsboys Strike of 1899 in New York City.
Paramount’s fall opener Newsies is now playing to audience and critical acclaim through October 20. For tickets and information, visit www.ParamountAurora.com, call (630) 896-6666, or stop by the Paramount Theatre box office, 23 E. Galena Blvd. in downtown Aurora, Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Newsies: The Heart Behind the Headlines
Panelist Biographies:
Francesca Morgan teaches U.S. history at Northeastern Illinois University including on the decades featuring streetcorner newsboys in American cities and other forms of child labor. She is also an author of the book Women and Patriotism in Jim Crow America. She received her Ph.D. from Columbia University in New York.
Susan Campbell Bartoletti is the author of picture books, novels, and nonfiction for children, including the Newbery Honor book Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow, the Sibert Medal-winning Black Potatoes and Dear America: A Coal Miner's Bride. She is also the author of Kids on Strike, a book about child labor including the newsboy strike of 1899. Her work has received dozens of awards and honors, including the NCTE Orbis Pictus Award for Nonfiction, the SCBWI Golden Kite Award for Nonfiction and the Jane Addams Children's Book Award.
Jim Corti, Artistic Director of Paramount Theatre and director of Newsies, inaugurated Paramount’s Broadway Series with President and CEO Tim Rater in the fall of 2011 with the critically acclaimed My Fair Lady. In 2015, Paramount’s Broadway Series became Jeff Award eligible. Since then, Paramount has garnered 71 nominations with 18 wins, including three consecutive Best Large Musical awards for Les Misérables, West Side Story and Sweeney Todd. Corti helmed all three, and won Best Director for two of them, Les Misérables and Sweeney Todd. He also directed Paramount’s Fiddler on the Roof, Miss Saigon, Rent, The Who’s Tommy, Oklahoma!, Mamma Mia!, Million Dollar Quartet, Once and The Producers.