It must be Alan Menken season in Minnesota.
A quick sample of the Disney-badged composer’s presence on area stages: “Little Shop of Horrors,” crafted by Menken with late collaborator Howard Ashman, is packing them in at the Guthrie through Aug. 18. The Ordway Center plans to run “The Little Mermaid,” also by Menken, as its big holiday show. And “Newsies,” his 2011 work about striking newsboys and girls in 1899 New York, is getting a rousing production at Artistry in Bloomington.
Director Ben Bakken has brought electricity and energy to Menken’s musical with a staging that has sweet, quiet moments and big, snazzy ones. Renee Guittar choreographs the bang-up dances, including a tap extravaganza that’s executed with aplomb by the village-sized cast on scenic designer Michaela Lochen’s chock-a-block New York locale. The efficient set is notable for the Brooklyn Bridge looming in the distance. Kate Mariana Brown conducts the bright, boisterous orchestra.
Bakken has tapped arresting young performers as leads. Will Dusek, last seen playing Frankie Valli in Chanhassen Dinner Theatres’ “Jersey Boys,” gives teenage strike leader Jack Kelly cocksure flair opposite newspaper reporter Katherine Plummer, smartly depicted by another fresh phenom, Audrey Parker.
Both stars show their characters’ journeys with strong acting full of personality and emotion. On the daydreamy opening number “Santa Fe,” Dusek sings with a New York accent, injecting character into a figure who might have a hard time shedding his roots as he imagines leaving the big city where he’s nobody for a small town where he can be a big figure.
On this number and throughout the show, Dusek invests his lines with literal and metaphorical meanings, and we’re all the richer for it.
Parker is similarly dynamic on “Watch What Happens,” a song in which she stands on a chair and flits her head almost birdlike as she embodies conflicting thoughts. Her Katherine struggles with self-confidence and Parker expertly draws us into her quicksilver emotions.
Bakken has cast “Newsies” to look like the culturally rich and diverse metropolis that New York has been for centuries. And that talented mosaic includes Tyson Insixiengma, who is swell as Crutchie, Pierce Brown as bright-eyed Davey and Maddox Tabalba as super-cute baby brother Les.
