“Explosive, athletic, acrobatic… brings tears to my eyes”

“But it’s Tomaino’s choreography that’s the knockout. Newsies offers a whole lot of opportunities for dancing and Tomaino’s accomplishments on this front are through the roof. The moves are explosive, athletic, acrobatic — dancers are backflipping all over the place, just flying! — and the patterns are deliciously clean and complex: while most of the company is executing one set of moves, individual dancers will shoot out like fireworks in individual ornamentations. In a number in which the characters repeatedly chant “Strike!”, their poses evoke all sorts of power and fury — from Communist poster art to flamenco. And ‘King of New York,’ the big tap dance number that opens Act 2, is dazzling. Even as that number fades, two ensemble members, Sebastian Issighos and Graeme Kitagawa, dance a little coda: the rhythms they tap out are so tricky, their skill is so impressive, and the understatement of the moment is so cool that remembering it now brings tears to my eyes.”