NEWSIES

While designing Newsies, I wanted to draw back to three major motifs:

- hope, dreams, and revolution -

Hope - Teal

is what keeps this story driving. The first time we see this motif is in Carrying the Banner right away when they wake up; again, after receiving a blessing from the nuns and hints of it in various other scenes where the action is rising like The World Will Know, Brooklyn’s Here and the Watch What Happens Reprise. In these scenes, teal is blended with other colors that represent everyday life like pale purples and dark hues of blue. However- hope is in it’s highest point in the brightest point in the show, during Once in for All's final chorus(6); where teal is the only present color coming from the cyc, literally hope having their back.

Jack’s dream of Santa Fe, Katherine’s dream of having a career, and the Newsies striving to be king of New York. I wanted the idea of dreams to feel like sunset in the American Southwest- something dramatically different than Manhattan. We see it rise in the prologue and return in the Act 1 send-off, “Santa Fe”. Crutchie reprises the colors in reverse, a sunrise, as he is trapped in the refuge. In King of New York- we have orange without the sunset as these dreams stay local to New York City. Similarly, the backlighting for the curtain in Medda’s theatre sports a bright orange as her dreams have already come true! Finally, we see this sunset in bows as my personal send-off to these young performers hoping that their dreams come true.

Dreams - oranges, purples and blues

4

4

Anyone who has seen Newsies knows that blue is THE color of this show. So of course, in those moments where the Newsies are tipping over the distribution wagon and grouping to standing up to your own father’s empire - I had to add in that striking blue. Some of these scenes include: Carrying the Banner, Once and for All, Seize the Day, and Watch What Happens.