If you know me personally, then you know that I love musicals. The past two years have been a hard time for musical lovers like me. Theatres, similar to cinemas, have obviously been closed for a long time. But movies can still be viewed at home on DVD or on streaming services. Musicals can't be viewed at home the same way movies can. However, some musicals were recorded before the world was shut down. As arguably one of the most popular musicals currently on Broadway, the original cast of Hamilton was filmed in June 2016 when the musical was at its height with the recording to be saved for a rainy day. That rainy day came in the form of 2020. In 2019, Disney outbid other studios (as it often does these days) for the rights to the recording of Hamilton. Disney did us theatre-goers a service by releasing the footage in July 2020 to their streaming platform Disney+, likely bringing thousands of new subscribers.

I've now watched that recording about three times as well as writing, learning and performing the whole drum score of Hamilton so I know it pretty well. Although the hype from Hamilton still hasn't settled down, there are actually some other professional recordings of shows like this. There's The Phantom of the Opera, Jesus Christ Superstar, and Legally Blonde all available on various streaming services. However, the one live recording that is most similar to Hamilton is Newsies. Newsies (or Newsies: The Broadway Musical as it's known on the streaming service) is also available on Disney+ and was filmed in a very similar style. I also learnt the whole drum score to Newsies so have seen it as many times as Hamilton. In today's Compared review, I am going to compare the two and start by giving you a brief storyline of both musicals.

Hamilton is obviously centred around Alexander Hamilton, one of America's lesser-known founding fathers. But the story doesn't just focus on Hamilton; many other well-known names have a staring role including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Aaron Burr, and of course King George III. Newsies is set during the Newsboys' Strike of 1899 in New York. The two storylines have hardly anything in common except that they are set over 100 years ago. Often the storyline or reference material doesn't matter so much in a musical and it is more how this is portrayed through the songs that bring people to a musical. So time to move on to the songs.

All musical theatre fans go through a Hamilton stage where they are listening to nothing but Hamilton. I went through my Hamilton stage before my Newsies stage. Both musicals have some of my all-time favourite songs however Hamilton seems to have consistently better songs. If you look at the Hamilton and Newsies albums on my Spotify, you will see that all of the Hamilton songs are liked but only some of the Newsies songs are liked. I love all the songs in Hamilton but don't love all the songs in Newsies. I still like all the songs in Newsies and will listen to them but don't love them as much as I love all the ones in Hamilton. However, I had a phase where I listened to nothing but Newsies, and preference of songs is likely subjective.

I had listened through the whole album of these musicals multiple times prior to seeing the recordings. I was quite surprised in each instance how much more emotion was put into the live musical than the songs. This of course makes sense as certain things don't sound good on an album but can be gotten away with in a live show. Not only was there more emotion in the live performance of Newsies but the performers seemed to sing better in the live show than on the album which doesn't make all that much sense as they are the same performers. A difference in performance can be heard on the Hamilton album but is not as evident as it is on the Newsies album.

Although I did earlier say that the two musicals were filmed in a similar style, there was one notable difference: Hamilton was filmed more like a show, Newsies was filmed more like a movie. Hamilton was designed to make you feel like you were there experiencing the show. The director Thomas Kail even said he "wanted to create a document that could feel like what it was to be in the theater at that time." Newsies, on the other hand, with added closeups, felt more like a movie. The movie showed more shots of characters creeping up that the audience may have not been able to see. Additionally, when the camera came in on these shots, the audio from the characters talking was turned down, as it would be in a movie. This contrasting take may have been due to the nature of the show. Hamilton is entirely told through song whereas Newsies has many scenes with dialogue. It would be hard to film Hamilton as Newsies was, but the directors of Newsies could get away with making it more like a movie.

The quality of the performances, the set pieces, the lighting, and the choreography was equally amazing in both shows. I couldn't say that one show had it better in any of these categories; they were just different.

When it comes down to picking a favourite between the two shows/movies, I think it is entirely up to personal preference. At the moment, I am a bit more obsessed with Newsies, but this is mainly because Newsies is newer to me so I am still discovering things. But there may be things in Hamilton that interest you, or there may be things in Newsies that interest you. Either way, I think that everyone should watch both of these recordings, whether you've seen the live shows or not. I haven't seen the live shows of either of these, but have booked tickets for when Hamilton comes to Melbourne and would love to see Newsies live as well! You might even see a Compared review soon comparing the live version of Hamilton to the Disney+ recording!

HAMILTON (M)

Director: Thomas Kail

Music by: Lin-Manuel Miranda

Starring: Lin-Manuel Miranda, Phillipa Soo, Leslie Odom Jr., Renée Elise Goldsberry, Daveed Diggs, Jonathan Groff, Christopher Jackson, Jasmine Cephas Jones, Okieriete Onaodowan, Anthony Ramos

Year released: 2020

My rating: 9.5/10

Compared with...

NEWSIES: THE BROADWAY MUSICAL (PG)

Director: Jeff Calhoun, Brett Sulivan

Music by: Alan Menken

Starring: Jeremy Jordan, Kara Lindsay, Ben Frankhauser, Andrew Keenan-Bolger, Steve Blanchard

Year released: 2017

My rating: 9.5/10

Review by Tristan Carr

Last edited: 28/11/2021