Kenny Ortega must believe in life after death.
Otherwise, he would not have made his debut as a feature film director with an old-fashioned, uplifting, heel-clicking, toe-tapping, finger-snapping, boy-meets-girl, boy-overcomes-impossible odds, dancing-in-the-streets, big-finale movie musical like ”Newsies.”
Hasn`t he heard that the movie musical is dead?
”I keep hearing that-that the musical is dead-but I guess I don`t accept that,” said Ortega, who previously was best known for choreographing Madonna`s ”Material Girl” video and the movie ”Dirty Dancing.”
”I guess I do believe in life after death, but I will admit that there have been very few movie musicals lately that have worked. But just because they`re few and far between doesn`t mean you give up on them.”
”Newsies,” based on the 1899 newsboys` strike against New York publisher Joseph Pulitzer, is Disney`s first attempt at a live-action musical after such recent animated successes as ”The Little Mermaid” and ”Beauty and the Beast.”
Christian Bale (”Empire of the Sun”) stars as the leader of the newsboys, who incur Pulitzer`s wrath when they protest against a price hike in what they have to pay for the newspapers they hawk on the street.
Robert Duvall plays Pulitzer, Oscar nominee Michael Lerner is one of the publisher`s minions and Ann-Margret portrays an entertainer sympathetic to the newsboys` plight.
Except for those few familiar faces-Max Casella of ”Doogie Howser, M.D.” fame might also qualify as a familiar face-the production is staffed by a cast of unknowns.
Ortega, along with choreographer Peggy Holmes, whipped those unknowns into shape over a 10-week rehearsal period on an 80-feet-by-80-feet stage.
”The talent pool of young performers who can sing, dance and act is deep, but not that deep,” said Holmes, who choreographed ”The Fabulous Baker Boys” and the phenomenally successful ”Wayne`s World.”
”At some point, we were scraping the bottom of the barrel when it came to finding young boys who looked under 18 and were not too ethnic-looking. Although we have black, Asian and Latino boys in the production, we had to make the rest of the boys look not too ethnic, to reflect that period when most of the newsboys were Irish.
Holmes said her first priority was to make sure that all the boys practiced and worked out so that they were strong enough to withstand the rigors of filming the dance numbers.
”By the end of rehearsals, they were so strong and so resilient that when we moved out to the cement to film the numbers, we had no injuries.”
Holmes said there were many professional dancers mixed in with the young actors, and it was her job to find a common meeting ground for both groups.
”It was an amazing thing to watch; the professional dancers had to lose some technique and the actors had to gain some technique for them to meet on the same level.”
Casella, who plays Racetrack Higgins (not far from his wise-cracking role as Vinnie on ”Doogie”), said it was exasperating to try to keep up with the professional dancers.
”Not having a dancing background, it was very difficult,” the actor said. ”At the same time, my most exhiliarating day on the set was when I managed to hold my own with the dancers.
”So I`d have to say that the best and worst aspects of this movie were the same.”
Alan Menken, the four-time Oscar-winning composer (two each for ”The Little Mermaid” and ”Beauty and the Beast”), wrote the music for
”Newsies,” but this time did not work with longtime collaborator Howard Ashman, who died recently of AIDS.
For ”Newsies,” Menken collaborated with lyricist Jack Feldman, and the composer said he expects to catch flak. ”So much has been made of my collaboration with Howard that I know people are going to say, `Who is Jack Feldman?`
”But these same people are the ones who always find something negative to say. After `Beauty and the Beast,` they complained that there was no `Under the Sea` in it (the hit single from `The Little Mermaid`).”
Menken said he was attracted to the challenge of writing music for a live-action musical after his animation work, but said that all musicals adhere to the same principles, so one type is no easier than another.
”The spine of every musical is the same,” he said. ”It has a hero who has a great dream or quest. Then he has to overcome obstacles that are preventing him from achieving that quest.
The fledgling director knows that he must wake up a movie audience that is, at best, apathetic about musicals.
”This is not going to appeal to the entire family,” Ortega conceded.
”I know that if this movie had come out when I was a kid, my brother wouldn`t enjoy it as much as `White Men Can`t Jump.` My father would fall asleep in the middle of it. My mother would go back to see it again and again and again. And my sister and I would dance down the aisles.
”It all depends on what kind of a family you have, and whether the parents have exposed their children to musicals or if they have let their kids sit in front of the TV all day watching cartoons.”
