“All the worlds a stage.” – William Shakespeare.
Theater is an immersive experience enjoyed by all audiences. Newsies Jr. is being performed by the talented students of Wellesley Middle School on March 21, 22, and 23-. The Play, Newsies, is about a charismatic newsboy and his friends who lead an uprising against their newspaper company.
The casting process for Newies Jr. was long and tedious, although it amounted to a wonderful production. The auditions are run by Wellesley Middle School’s well-loved drama teacher Leah Fine, who is the director for Newsies Jr.
“We have three days of auditions, and the first two days we have the students come, they have to sing by themselves, do a short monologue by themselves, and dance a small short dance that they are taught by the choreographer.” Said Fine. “That takes a full four hours to see just half of the kids that audition, and we do that on the second day as well.”
After the auditions, there are callbacks. During callbacks, the directors have some of the kids come back and read from the script, dance, and sing The goal of callbacks is for the directors to know more about the potential cast members. Even for the leads, auditions and callbacks can be a fun, yet still stressful process.
Eva Bernhardt ’30 plays Katherine, who is one of the protagonists in the story. She is the love interest who is also the antagonist’s daughter. Katherine later has a change of heart and decides to use her writing skills to help the newsboys.
“I’d say the callback dancing was hard,” said Bernhardt. “You had to do tap-dancing, which is not what I’m best at.”
Katherine is Pulizter’s, the antagonists’, daughter. Pulitzteris the reason the newsboys are on strike and is responsible for raising the price of the newspapers. Pulitzer is played by Sawyer Gordon ’28.
Inspirations can influence how an actor will perform. Sawyer’s inspiration for acting comes from the original performance of Newsies.
“My inspiration for acting is the original actor who played Joseph Pulitzer,” Gordon said. “He was really strong and I really admire how he [the actor] played him.”
Newsies was an immersive experience, and a hit with the audience. People of all ages loved this moving performance.
Theater is an important part of many students’ lives and is loved in many places around the world.
“We do on-stage things that are supposed to happen off. Which is a kind of integrity, if you look on every exit as being an entrance somewhere else.” – Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern Are Dead