What you'll really savor, though, are the rough-and-tumble antics of SLT's athletic troupe dancing up a storm as turn-of-the-century mugs sporting names like Specs, Race, Buttons, Mush, Splasher, Jo Jo and Romeo. The adult side of the story is less compelling, but Robert Reed puts a nice comic spin on Pulitzer's rapacious "The Bottom Line," and Nki Calloway, accompanied by a bevy of "Bowery Beauties," belts out Medda Larkin's vaudeville number "That's Rich" with gusto. Top NYC politicos also figure in the action. Chip Holderman plays the mayor, and Chalmer Harper - in a sly nod to FDR's deus ex machina role in "Annie" - makes a late-inning appearance as Teddy Roosevelt, then-governor of the Empire State. Tanner Johnson, a sterling Tony in last season's "West Side Story," makes a soulful Crutchie, a Dickensian character who captures your heart in "Letter from the Bridge," while Hayden Elshaw and Max Duffy lend both conviction and comic relief as down-on-their-luck brothers Davey and Les Jacobs. James Brandon Martin offers rugged appeal as hardscrabble Jack, while revealing a more sensitive side to the part-time painter in his stirring accounts of "Santa Fe" and "Something to Believe In," the latter an emotional duet with Darby Vincent's Katherine. Vincent also excels in the show's standout solo number, the melodically and rhythmically challenging "Watch What Happens." The lively mash-up of "Oliver!," "Annie," "Les Mis" and "The Bowery Boys" works its way into your nervous system via nonstop dance dazzle designed by Dunn for the young but highly skilled performers. Whether pirouetting in classic ballet style, tapping madly atop tables or plying any number of gymnastic moves - leaps, backflips, cartwheels, somersaults - the indefatigable ensemble grabs your attention with "Carrying the Banner" and doesn't let go through a parade of catchy power-to-the-people anthems like "The World Will Know," "Seize the Day" and "King of New York." Based on a 1992 movie musical flop, the 2012 stage version brought an expanded score by Disney mainstay Alan Menken and new lyrics by Jack Feldman and book by Harvey Fierstein. The story concerns a ragtag band of newspaper delivery boys who form an ad hoc union in 1899 to protest extra costs imposed on them by greedy New York World publisher Joseph Pulitzer. Leading the charge is saucy "newsie" Jack Kelly, who gets an unexpected assist (and strong romantic vibes) from fledgling journalist Katherine Plumber.
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