'Newsies' extends Broadway run

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NEW YORK, March 19 (UPI) -- The Broadway run of the new musical "Newsies" has been extended by two months, the show's producers announced Monday.

The limited Broadway engagement will now run through Aug. 19. Tickets for the extension dates will go on sale Tuesday. The show was initially scheduled to close in June.

The show features music by eight-time Academy Award winner Alan Menken, lyrics by Jack Feldman and a script by four-time Tony Award winner Harvey Fierstein began performances March 15 and will officially open on Broadway March 29.

The Broadway company of "Newsies" features Jeremy Jordan, John Dossett, Kara Lindsay, Capathia Jenkins, Ben Fankhauser and Andrew Keenan-Bolger. Jordan, Dossett, Lindsay, Fankhauser and Keenan-Bolger all reprise the roles they created in New Jersey's Paper Mill Playhouse production last fall.

Set in New York City at the turn of the last century, "Newsies" is about 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," a synopsis said. "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."