TPAC & State Museum Partnering for NEWSIES Exhibit

The Tennessee Performing Arts Center and the Tennessee State Museum are partnering to present NEWSIES: A Tennessee Special Edition, a collaborative exhibit that explores the story behind Disney's Broadway smash-hit musical NEWSIES and the state's rich printing history.

Disney's NEWSIES will make its Nashville debut in TPAC's Andrew Jackson Hall on May 26-31, 2015 and close the 2014-15 HCA/TriStar Health Broadway at TPAC season. The hit musical is based on Disney's 1992 live-action film Newsies, and both are inspired by the real-life Newsboys Strike of 1899 in New York City, in which the newsboy Kid Blink led a successful two-week strike against publishing giants William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer.

The exhibit details how NEWSIES went from historical inspiration to Tony Award-winning smash hit and how Tony Award winner Christopher Gatelli shaped the high-energy choreography to portray the newsies' evolution into a unified force. Also featured in the exhibit is a costume from the Broadway production, making Nashville the first city to display such an item.

With assistance from the Special Collections department of the Nashville Public Library and curated by Senior Curator Jim Hoobler, the state museum presents historical vignettes of newspaper printing in Tennessee and, specifically, in Nashville's famed Printer's Alley. Over time, the museum has collected several photographs taken by Lewis Wickes Hine, the American sociologist and photographer who used his camera as a tool for social reform, and some of his images of newspaper delivery boys and other child labor settings are featured in the exhibit.

Other sections of the exhibit examine how original printing terms have survived into the digital age, showcase scans of historic fronts from the Nashville Banner, and provide a historical timeline of events.

In addition to the exhibit, TPAC and the state museum also will collaborate during the engagement of NEWSIES to offer pre-show educational tours of the museum's permanent collection, including a re-creation of the printing press and press room of the Knoxville Gazette, Tennessee's first newspaper.