NEWSIES to Offer Free Lottery to Final Performance on Broadway

Newsies, the Tony Award winning "Critics' Pick," enters its final week on Broadway today, prior to launching its national tour in October.

Broadway fans have embraced Newsies from the very first performance, helping to propel the show from a limited Broadway run of 101 performances to a record-breaking open-ended run of 1,005 performances. In honor of the show's dedicated supporters, a limited number of free tickets will be given away through a lottery for the final performance on August 24 at 3:00pm.

Entries will be accepted at the Nederlander Theater box office beginning at 11:30am. Names will be drawn at random thirty minutes following the start of entries being accepted. Winners must be present at the time of the drawing and show valid ID to receive tickets. Tickets are subject to availability. Complete terms and conditions of the lottery can be found below.

Newsies features a Tony Award-winning score with music by eight-time Academy Award winner Alan Menken and lyrics by Jack Feldman, with a book by four-time Tony Award winner Harvey Fierstein. Produced by Disney Theatrical Productions, Newsies is directed by Tony nominee Jeff Calhoun and choreographed by Christopher Gattelli, who won a 2012 Tony Award for his work.

When it opened on March 29, 2012, Newsies was intended for a Broadway run of just 101 performances. The show's fiercely devoted fans had other ideas, however: they propelled the show to a run that will total 1005 performances, attendance of more than 1 million and a gross of over $100M. At the time of Newsies' closing, only the landmark musical Rent will have played the Nederlander Theatre longer in its 93 year history.

The Newsies North American tour launches in October 2014 and will play 25 cities over 43 weeks during the 2014-15 season. For itinerary and ticket information, visit NewsiesTheMusical.com/Tour, Facebook.com/Newsies and Twitter.com/Newsies.

Since bursting onto Broadway, Newsies has set and broken seven Nederlander Theatre house records and become the highest-grossing show of the 2011-12 Broadway season. The show received 23 major theatrical nominations - including eight Tony Award nods - and won Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards for Score and Choreography.

Though intended only as a pilot production before the title was licensed for regional, professional and amateur productions, Newsies' initial production at Paper Mill Playhouse in September 2011 engendered extraordinary interest from the media and public alike, prompting Newsweek.com to call the show, "one of the biggest surprises of the season...the talk of the town." It was then that Disney Theatrical Productions decided to move the production to Broadway for what was intended to be a strictly limited three-month run.

The current Broadway company of Newsies features Corey Cott as Jack Kelly, John Dossett as Joseph Pulitzer, Liana Hunt as Katherine Plumber, Capathia Jenkins as Medda Larkin, Ben Fankhauser as Davey, Andy Richardson as Crutchie, and Luca Padovan and Zachary Unger alternating the role of Les.

Set in New York City at the turn of the century, Newsies is the rousing tale of Jack Kelly, a charismatic newsboy and leader of a ragged band of teenaged 'newsies,' who dreams only of a better life far from the hardship of the streets. But when publishing titans Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst raise distribution prices at the newsboys' expense, Jack finds a cause to fight for and rallies newsies from across the city to strike for what's right.

Newsies is inspired by the real-life 'Newsboy Strike of 1899,' when newsboy Kid Blink led a band of orphan and runaway newsies on a two-week-long action against Pulitzer, Hearst and other powerful newspaper publishers.

The Nederlander Theatre box office hours are Monday through Saturday 10am - 8pm and Sunday 11:30am - 6pm. Newsies is performed on the following schedule: Monday - Wednesday at 7:30pm; Friday - Saturday at 8pm; Wednesday & Saturday at 2pm; and Sunday at 3pm. Visit NewsiesTheMusical.com for details.

COMPLETE TERMS & CONDITIONS OF THE NEWSIES TICKET LOTTERY:

- A limited number of FREE tickets will be sold through a lottery for the August 24, 2014 3:00pm matinee performance of Newsies.

- Entries will be accepted at the Nederlander Theatre box office beginning at 11:30am for up to two tickets.

- Thirty minutes following the start of entries being accepted, names will be drawn at random for a limited number of tickets.

- Only one entry is allowed per person.

- Entries are checked for duplication prior to drawing.

- Winners must be present at the time of the drawing and show valid ID to purchase tickets.

- Limit one entry per person and two tickets per winner.

- Tickets are subject to availability.

Offer not valid on prior purchased tickets and may not be combined with any other offer. ALL SALES FINAL. Not all seats are available. Other restrictions may apply. Dates, times, prices and cast subject to change without notice. Offer may be revoked without notice. Offer valid for 8/24/2014 performance only.

Photo Credit: Matthew Murphy