CONWAY — News flash — a cast of more than 100 Conway High School students will take the stage, starting Thursday, for this year’s spring musical.
Newsies will open for the public at 7 p.m. Thursday in the James H. Clark Auditorium at Conway High School. The play will also be performed at 1 p.m. Good Friday, when school is out, and again at 7 p.m. Friday, as well as at 1 p.m. and 7 pm. Saturday.
Director A.J. Spiridigliozzi, high school theater and stagecraft teacher, said students in the past have begged to do the musical. Then he saw Newsies on Broadway, “I fell in love with it,” he said.
“It’s a great story. It’s historical fiction, based on the actual newsboys’ strike of 1899 in New York City,” Spiridigliozzi said.
Originally a Disney movie, the play portrays the males and females who hawked the newspapers and went on strike to protest their low wages and poor working conditions after the Spanish-American War.
The Conway High School musical has a cast of 110 — “it’s an insane number,” Spiridigliozzi said. Counting the stage crew, hair and makeup, pit orchestra, backstage choir and others, he said, 170 to 180 people are involved in the show.
“We want to be a group that includes as much as possible,” he said. “We have a lot of fresh faces, which is really, really great.”
Junior Ethan Marotte is starring in his first big role in a Conway High School musical. In Newsies, Marotte is Jack Kelly, the newsies’ union leader.
“That is exactly the part I wanted,” he said. Marotte said he watched the Broadway version of Newsies on Netflix and was attracted to the role.
“I thought it would be amazing to play Jack because he’s this really charismatic guy, the leader of the newsies,” Marotte said. “He’s arrogant, but you get to see his vulnerability a lot. It’s fun to play all the different sides. He’s got so many layers.”
Marotte also has a solo, “Santa Fe,” which he sings after some of Jack’s friends get hurt in a brawl with police.
“He sings about how he wants to go away from New York and start a new life in Santa Fe, away from the life of a newsie,” Marotte said.
“It’s going to be really, really good,” Marotte said of Newsies.
It’s not Marotte’s first time onstage, by any means. He grew up performing in small parts in the Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre, of which his mother, Mary Ruth Marotte, is executive director.
“The special part about that was watching all these professional actors and learning from them. I picked up techniques from them,” Ethan Marotte said.
It’s definitely a family affair for him this year.
Marotte will be joined by his twin sister, Olivia, a featured dancer in the show, and their younger brother, Simon, a freshman, who will perform as a newsie.
“It’s really fun being in it with them; my younger brother messes with me a little bit in rehearsals,” Ethan said, laughing.
“That family is insanely talented,” Spiridigliozzi said.
Other characters and cast members include the following:
• Katherine, a blossoming reporter, is part of a twist toward the end, Spiridigliozzi said.
The lead role is performed by junior Anna Caroline Gregg, and she said it was the part she wanted.
“[Katherine is] very headstrong, and she fights for what she believes in, even if it’s not how she was raised,” Gregg said. “She wants to pursue a career, which I think is really cool.”
She has a duet with Jack, “Something to Believe In,” as well as a solo.
Gregg said the most challenging part of the role for her is singing.
“It’s what I feel least comfortable doing, but it’s also what I’m most excited about,” she said.
• Crutchie, Jack’s best friend, is played by senior Camden Keech. Crutchie is disabled and can’t walk.
• Brothers Davey and Les are played by Douglas Butler, a junior, and Michael Taylor, a freshman, respectively.
The brothers are working for the newspaper because their father was injured on the job, and there was no workers’ compensation then, so they stopped going to school so they could work.
• Joseph Pulitzer, the media tycoon who owns the paper “and thinks he owns the world,” Spiridigliozzi said, will be played by Will Rowe, a senior. “It’s his first time doing a high school musical.”
Pulitzer owned the New York Evening World and tried to break the strike.
• Medda Larkin, the owner of a vaudeville theater to whom Jack goes for help, is played by Conway High School senior Bria Alford.
In addition to those cast members, students perform as other newsies, and there is a vocal ensemble, an acting ensemble and featured dancers.
Tickets are $5 for students, age 4 through the 12th grade; $10 for adults; and $5 for Conway School District employees. Tickets will be sold in advance at the auditorium box office from 4-7 p.m., beginning Monday, as well as Tuesday and Wednesday, and prior to the performances.
“There are a lot of people who have invested a lot of their lives into this show,” Spiridigliozzi said.
“It’s moving that people care about it and care about the product we put forth to the community. We’re a big team,” he said.
“It’s a balance game, and it’s a puzzle,” Spiridigliozzi said of the huge cast.
He said the show is coming together piece by piece, and he can’t wait for them to tell the story.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.