CHSS Drama Club’s ‘Newsies’ performance a newsworthy show

The Cape Hatteras Secondary School (CHSS) Drama Club ‘carried the banner’ with its long-awaited production–or in this case, edition–of ‘Newsies’ this weekend, bringing one of Broadway’s most energetic and fast-paced musicals to the local stage.

The musical is based on the 1899 Newsboys’ Strike against aggressive price hikes imposed by Manhattan’s newspaper tycoons, William Randolph-Hurst and Joseph Pulitzer. What begins as a street-level protest quickly grows into a movement that ultimately exposes the corrupt underbelly of Gilded Age America. Jack and his newsies gang clinch to stop the world and stand up to the giants who keep it running.

The troupe performed four back-to-back shows from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon to a packed house in the CHSS auditorium, marking the culmination of three months of rehearsals that began in September.

A week of school closures due to a stormy fall did not deter the cast, who would spend up to seven hours rehearsing after school and on weekends. That work paid off in spades–students met the show’s demands head-on with poised skill, synched choreography–not to mention acrobatics–smooth transitions, and soaring arias from leads Ellie Nuzzo and Owen Austin.

The Island Free Press got the chance to speak with Austin, who played the lead role of the cowboy-turned-young-turk, Jack Kelly; Nuzzo, who played the assiduous journalist, Katherine Plumber; and fellow Senior performer, Marissa Liner, who played the renegade capo of the Brooklyn Newsies, Spot Conlon.

When asked why they chose the Tony award-winning production, Austin explained that he had begged Director Blake Taft to perform it since he had first learned about the show when he was 14 years old. Nuzzo said how impressed she was by the story and was determined to showcase their ensemble’s talents, and Liner, having performed the musical before, believed this rendition to be the best one yet.

The debut felt timely: the world that the newsies had stopped somehow kept spinning. The villainous Pulitzer has his name on the most coveted prize in journalism, and tech bros own newsrooms like the Washington Post. Even if we all heed Theodore Roosevelt’s (played by Jack Fuller) counsel to ‘keep your eyes on the stars and your feet on the ground,’ we find ourselves staring up not only to the stars, but to the satellites by our own age’s silicon tycoons. Still, the ensemble reminded the audience–and the community writ large–that even the little guys still have a say.

Austin, Nuzzo, and Liner, along with the rest of the CHSS Drama Club, will bookend the school year with the Sound of Music. They hope that the entire community will once again come out to support them–I know I will.