Welcome to Newsies!

Hello and welcome, Crane River Theater's Newsies team! I am so excited to work with all of you this summer! My name is Devon Hayakawa - I am your dramaturg (and I'll be playing Albert, one of the newsies) for this show.

 

Now some of you may be wondering, what exactly is a dramaturg? According to theatre artist Terry McCabe, "Dramaturgy is the comprehensive exploration of the context in which the play resides. The dramaturg is the resident expert on the physical, social, political, and economic milieus in which the action takes place, the psychological underpinnings of the characters, [and] the various metaphorical expressions in the play of thematic concerns."

 

To sum it up: any kind of research you need, I'm your gal.

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This website is filled to the brim with information related to the show. The Newsies Production Handbook, which is the official guide to the show provided by Disney, has an entire dramaturgy section itself. That section is where my research began, and the rest stemmed from questions I had after reading it.

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If you'd like to start with the Newsies Production Handbook's materials, click here.

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If you'd like to start by delving right into the Newsboys' Strike of 1899, click here.