#Newsies original cast

[jilllovesmike]

Newsies days. Look at those guns!

[thefandomchaos]

I’ve seen this done for Livesies but OBC need appreciation as well and because we all still have trouble telling the boys apart, lets add more into the mix so you learn to recognize who is who in every single version of the cast

I am happy to admit I’ve learn to recognize all the newsies for OBC and Livesies (+ Tour)

This is the Newsies boys opening night of Broadway; I did include Smalls even though she’s not in any of the pictures.

Jack Kelly: Jeremy Jordan

Davey Jacobs : Ben Frankhauser

Les Jacobs: Lewis Goro & Mathew Schechter

Crutchie: Andrew Keenan-Bolger

RaceTrack Higgins: Ryan Breslin (u/s Davey)

Albert DaSilva/Bill: Garett Hawe (u/s Davey & Crutchie)

Finch: Aaron J. Albano

Tommy Boy/Spot Conlon: Tommy Bracco

Mike/Morris Delancey: Mike Faist (u/s Jack)

Ike/Oscar Delancey: Brendon Stimson (u/s Jack)

Specs: Ryan Steele

Henry: Kyle Coffman

Jojo/Darcy: Thayne Jasperson

Elmer: Evan Kazprzak (u/s Seitz & Bunsen)

Buttons: Jess LeProtto

Romeo: Andy Richardson (u/s Crutchie)

Sniper: Alex Wong

Mush: Ephraim Sykes

Barney Peanuts: Jack Scott (Swing)

Knobs: Michael Fatica (Swing)

Katherine Plumber: Kara Lindsey

+

Smalls/Hannah/Nun: Laurie Veldheer

[iwasonlydancing]

Song of the Day #119

"Santa Fe" performed by Jeremy Jordan from Newies (Original Broadway Cast Recording), 2012

[ceasarslegion]

I really need to join a musical theatre group again. I was in theatre all through school and my gap years and in university, and then i just abruptly stopped after i graduated. Man i got to professional level in my gap years and ran with an official troupe where i got a few lead roles, i have the skill and experience and know i can do it. My voice will be a bit rusty and i'll need some practice to get it back into shape and i'll probably need to hit the gym to get my agility and flexibility back up to standard but i was legit so fucking happy when i was on stage singing and dancing and acting even though its basically a second full time job to do that when its not your career, but all that work never felt like WORK to me. I think id really be a lot happier and more enriched with my current situation if i was still in musical theatre. I figured out how to make it work in my gap years and school and university, i can figure it out now

[bigmack2go]

That moment when you realise that your dad has some connections

[broadway-shenanigans]

Baby Elliot 🥹

Laura Osnes and Corey Cott supporting each other while receiving their portraits.

[superhousecat-once-again]

I saw Newsies live again after too too long and man every single time it’s like I’m thirteen again, just pure excitement and joy being poured into my system

[flowercrownmickey]

every reference and easter egg in how to disappear (or at least all the ones i can remember)

how many did you catch? Massive SPOILERS under the cut!!

baba yaga (Barbara Yaga, her ownership of the house ian rents is one of the few things carried over from the original wilde life au concept that i was going for in the first chapter)

i wanted to name the town in Oklahoma something weird and a little creepy but not use a real place. the thing is Oklahoma already pretty much has towns named with every weird creepy combo of words possible (seriously, go skim a map sometime, you will see some wild stuff). In the end i decided on Owl Creek because it's a real name but it's actually not one place, but the name of multiple waterways all across the state. 👍

the rainbow fuck you socks are real socks (i used a photo of them as the cover for the how to disappear playlist) that @michellemisfit sent to me as a gift, i couldnt resist using them in the story.

Glenchad's technique for haunting/traumatizing Ian is inspired by the x-files episode How the Ghosts Stole Christmas

Glen himself is based on and named after Glen McReynolds from one of my favorite movies: Everybody Wants Some!! (the little inside joke i have with myself is that Glenchad hates Ian because Glen in the movie hates pitchers, and in one of my favorite fics, Love is a Ballfield, Ian is a pitcher.) (yeah it gets pretty convoluted inside my brain lol)

the infomercial ian watches on one of the local tv stations is a real product that i found by googling for the weirdest products sold through infomercials

the channel LOCAL 58 is of course an easter egg for the analog horror series by Kris Straub (of whom im a big fan)

the title of the fic itself is also a reference to another work by Kris Straub, a book of short psychological horror stories called Ichor Falls: A Visitor's Guide

mickeyism nickname "livestrong" is of course a reference to famous cyclist Lance Armstrong

Norma's is named for Norma Jennings, a character from Twin Peaks who owns and operates the Double R Diner, a major location used in the TV series.

I was a huge Newsies fan and had a crush on half the cast of the movie as a tween. Christian Bale wasn't my personal favorite but I figured he'd be the most recognizable reference for the general audience!

mickeyism nickname "Cowboy" was the newsie-name that Christian Bale's character went by in Newsies.

Ian and his Taco Bell drop off: I searched food delivery reddits for common horror stories from delivery drivers and turns out the prank of telling a driver there is a cash tip tucked somewhere on the front porch and then watching/filming (and possibly even posting to the internet) the person searching fruitlessly for the tip is disgustingly not uncommon.

the "old-as-fuck British sitcom set in a department store" is Are Your Being Served? - a show i simply remember being on all the time on the local PBS stations back when we still had TV and would just have to watch whatever was on!

Mickey refers to Oklahoma City as "The City" which is the way many locals refer to it.

I had to include Ian getting an order for Subway as a little homage to one of my absolute favorite fics of all time: Intro to Quantum Dating by @spoonfulstar

Ian is flying down the road on his bicycle bearing a single meatlover's footlong. - this is a joke about Ian's giant penis. But he is also actually delivering a meatlover's footlong.

"John D" - is short for John Doe because of course they wouldnt register for the grubhub app with a real name.

the werewolf pack was a little bit inspired by the Hale family from Teen Wolf, the werewolves from grizzly hills in world of warcraft, and the aesthetic of the broke-ass snobby british aristocrats from The Gentlemen TV series.

"Mother Selene" referenced by the pack leader just before the werewolves transform, refers to Selene the Greek goddess of the moon. There's heaps of history from all over europe on the origins of the werewolf myth. for my werewolves i chose to go with the ancient Greeks since "lycanthropy" is a greek word and i had decided that in this universe, the greek gods were fey. Selene was a powerful fey who created lycanthropy and tied the malady to the moon, she made herself the center of a cult of worship and used her werewolves as a vicious personal army to torment and control the humans who lived in what she considered to be her domain. When Ian reaches the center of the hedge maze, the statue he climbs is a statue of Selene (ian mistakes her crescent moon crown she is usually depicted with for horns).

ian in his mind refers to the werewolves as lunatics, just a little tease as the etymology of the word is a madness caused by the moon.

i decided vampires are one of the few things in this universe that dont exist, Mickey references the myth as originating from Bram Stoker's Dracula (though he doesnt specify this), a book that one could argue is about real estate. which is both a joke but also please read this incredible post by @gardenerian because its also...not not not a joke.

as a huge fan of Two of Your Earth Minutes by @the-rat-wins, i absolutely HAD to work in a joke in which mickey calls Ian an alien

in chapter 4 the vibe i wanted to capture for Norma's was that of Merlotte's Bar and Grill from True Blood, and many of the characters are based off of or named after True Blood characters.

Eric is named after Eric Northman

Dawn and Tara and Jessica are all characters who at some point were waitresses at Merlotte's. (Though later I realized Dawn and Tara are also iconic Buffy characters, which I happily retcon as being an extra reference)

Glen being a fan of China Beach is a reference to Jenny Nicholson's incredible feature length video essay about the vampire diaries tv series

the fey named paula is named after canon ian and mickey's PO from season 10

the fey named cooper is named after agent dale cooper from twin peaks

aunt barb trades her chickens for an RV - a convoluted reference to the myth of baba yaga having a hut that can move around on giant chicken legs.

ADDING ONE THING: in chapter one Mickey implies Ian is a delinquent and in chapter four Ian calls Mickey a miscreant. this was important to me for some reason but i dont know if its a thing anyone noticed 🥲😆

okay....i think that's it?? for now anyway~ xoxo

[jesncin]

I’d really like to hear your thoughts on MAWS characters alongside Lois, if you want to do that of that’s entirely up to you but it would be really interesting ^_^

I've written about maws a fair bit on this blog! You can find my general thoughts on the jesncin talks maws tag and my massive maws Lois essay here for my thoughts on her. Suffice to say I'm not a fan of this show, lol. I haven't been able to stomach watching season 2 so my entire knowledge is limited to season 1. With that said, roundup of my thoughts on maws characters:

Clark Kent: boring. Vanilla. Critical lack of hero motivation and idealism outside of "people are getting hurt!" as a platitude. Just some guy who does chores because that's the nice thing to do. Not defeating the Superman Is Boring allegations- just has an uwu cute cinnamon roll himbo filter on it.

Lois Lane: xenophobic asian lois lane is the worst crime ever committed to me. A historically jaded, award winning, accomplished career woman fighting against work place misogyny is now a cutesty uwu girl-failure who needs the help of two men to get hired. Barf.

Jimmy Olsen: I get the attempt at making him a conspiracy theorist as a means of tapping into Jimmy's wacky silver age antics and to bounce off of Clark for shenanigans, but it doesn't meaningfully interrogate how that is at odds with his job as a journalist. Also he was sidelined hard in S1- more than he was in CW Supergirl.

Perry White: I was hoping that unlike STAS and if MAWS was going to pull from anime, that this meant strong relationships with Superman's cast system. But nope. Perry is just a running gag. I was hoping for a Snapper and Kara dynamic like in CW Supergirl.

Scoop troop (Cat Grant, Ronnie Troupe, Steve Lombard): Superfluous characters, easily delete-able. All of which have been reinterpreted as anime stereotypes. Yawn.

Newskid Legion: Also delete-able and a waste of my time. They should be called newsies. They make no sense as outdated characters placed in a futuristic setting. What is child labor doing this late in the game. Be more creative with modernizing outdated characters.

Pa and Ma Kent: Boring. The biggest problem you can have with the Kents is making them generic supportive parents like they're sentient Hallmark cards. Pa Kent got the bad end of the stick as the clueless parent, while Ma Kent was pushed as the heart of the family to Clark. Not that she did much.

Vicki Vale: Absolutely insane of this show to add another Asian xenophobe woman journalist. The MAWS crew love gloating about how they're not going to include Batman in MAWS, but they can't resist putting a Gothamite in their show and stealing rogues from other heroes. Could've brought Angela Chen (a canonically asian Metropolis reporter) from STAS but I guess she's not as big a name as a Gotham character, eh?

Livewire: the glowdown of a century. DCSHG continues to outperform every modern version of this character. Why make her a generic smuggler when her original job as a shock jokey is far more interesting?? Podcaster or influencer was right there. Her motives make no sense too.

Intergang crew: Why. Did they consolidate. Banshee with two random rogues (Mist & Roughouse) and call them Intergang. That's so many glowdowns at once. I've never seen someone look at a hero's diverse rogues gallery and say "let's consolidate all these characters so we have less material to work with in the future". I hate how the rogues are all tech based, and share the same origin. These baddies kickstarted the show's "villains with petty crime motivations": no ideological or thematic draw to them.

Ivo/Parasite: Another villain with nonsensical motivations. His business is going bankrupt so he sets up an investor event party to show off his Black Panther Lexo suit (which was apparently a response to Superman! A stranger that we can't trust! And somehow these expensive suits are more trustworthy) only to attack his investors and get owned by Superman. Then he just has a hateful vendetta against Superman. People who think this is a good Parasite interpretation because they projected vague Elon Musk are kidding themselves. I could clown on MAWS' Ivo all day. He is so badly written.

Heatwave: Why genderbend a Flash villain when Superman already has a Fire Woman in his rogues gallery? Volcana? Remember her? She's from the same show yall got Livewire from? Praise this show all you want for "reigniting interest in Superman", it's clear they're willing to toss away actual Superman cast characters for more popular characters from other heroes when it suits them. What's Heatwave's motivations? Petty crime.

Slade Wilson/Deathstroke: Imagine building this character up to be a big threat only to do nothing with him lol. I can't take him seriously, his voice acting is the worst and I hate his design. This show is so desperate to make attractive villains for fangirls it's frankly pathetic. How did people even mistaken him for Superman? He doesn't FLY.

Mallah and The Brain: This is what happens when you revive gay villains and put them through the HarlIvy Respectability Beam on fast forward. The gay villains aren't villains anymore! Because that would be bad representation! They're now cute cuddly domestic dads who want to raise robot children and run away together!! How TRITE. Mallah has "american faking a french accent" syndrome but bad voice acting is the norm in this show.

Mxy: The one time they include a villain that Lois and Jimmy could easily help Superman defeat (Mxy's whole deal is that you can send him to his dimension by tricking him to spell or say his name backwards) they opt to make it even dumber by just "removing his hat". Because the MAWS crew aren't smart enough to think of ways Superman and his pals can trick Mxy. For the record, CW Supergirl got this right in comparison.

Legion of Loises: It's the way this show can't write competent women even when that's the goal. All the characters act so stupid and that includes the Legion of Loises. At least MAWS!Lois learns the important lesson that even though she's not as accomplished as these career focused versions of her, at least she can keep her man. Misogyny in a cute package.

Alex/Lex Luthor: Go away. Ugly design I can't stand him. Miserable voice acting as usual.

Amanda Waller: She's pretty generic here. Playing second fiddle to Sam Lane for the most part, but this show has a problem with fleshing out Black characters in general so.

Sam Lane: We now have up to THREE asian xenophobes in MAWS season 1. The crew did not think their diversity through because at the end of the day S1 was really about a White Guy Alien getting oppressed by mostly people of color. Without a hint of irony.

Jor-El: I thought the language barrier between him and Clark was an inspired choice and clever as a means of postponing Clark learning about his heritage. But nope. Jor-El just starts magically talking in English later on. Otherwise boring and generic!

Brainy: I know he's prominent in S2 so I can't speak much for his character from the small impression I got of him in S1, but I can say that he looks mad ugly <3 truly horrible rogues designs in this show.

PHEW!! That's my roundup of MAWS character opinions! Wild how I can't even pinpoint a character I like on this show, lol. I know Kara's in S2 as well, and what I've seen of her sounds awful. Her design is bad too. I'm just not ready for the heartbreak of meeting that version of her because I love Supergirl so much :((

[fireworkss-exe]

saw a production of newsies last night, here are some fun/interesting things I noticed

OUTDOOR VENUE! it was super open and you could see the stars, which was cool

the crew members were dressed like newsies

FEM NEWSIES!

Davey wore mostly black during Act 1 and lighter colors during Act 2 (possibly reflecting his feelings towards the strike moving from doubtful to hopeful)

JACKED Davey?? like he was built like a wrestler

SUPER tall Crutchie

he, Jack, and Davey were built like a staircase height-wise

Crutchie gave off calm, reserved, practical, reasonable older brother vibes

RACE WITH LONG HAIR

the Seize the Day choreo was inspired by the movie's choreo

JACK DANCED! A LOT!

newspapers were thrown at the audience

HUGE ensemble

Medda in red <3

one of the cast members proposed to his gf during intermission and the cast sang for her?? and SHE SAID YES

more improv'ed interactions

King of New York choreo was super original and fun, they danced on tables and chairs and with brooms

Les, Katherine, and Davey danced on the bar during KONY

Davey imitated Spot and his stance for the "next event you can count on Brooklyn" line

he also sounded genuinely excited for the "is that a real place? is that santa fe?" line, more like he was impressed and interested by Jack's painting and less like he was skeptical

Davey and Jack got in a physical altercation before Watch What Happens Reprise

Pulitzer slapped Katherine when she tried to apologize to Jack in the office

Katherine showed up at the rally with the newsies

all the Brooklyn newsies were girls except Spot

Les went up to Jack at the end of the rally and tried to talk to him, and Jack shoved him to the ground

the newsies threw their caps in the air when Jack announced they won

[eurydicees]

i've watched way too many wicked bootlegs in the past few weeks and so. reviews of the elphabas i've watched so far (in alphabetical order by last name, this is NOT a ranking).

stephanie j block

she's good! not my favorite i've seen, but i did enjoy her performance overall. i liked her scenes at shiz with doctor dillamond a lot. i really liked how she made the role her own; not sure if it's her singing voice or general speaking intonation or some combination of it all but something felt very distinct from the other elphabas i've watched. no good deed was CRAZY. also her chemistry with sebastian arcelus (fiyero) is solid--i looooooved as long as you're mine. given that they're married this makes sense lmfao, but still thought i'd mention it. fiyero's little spellcasting hand motions and elphaba scoffing and rolling her eyes is actually adorable. another side note but i will also say that annaleigh ashford as glinda was WAY better than i expected and i'm a little obsessed with her.

lilli cooper

ok im gonna be a little harsh here, i'm sorry but i didn't love this cast as a whole (kara lindsay as glinda, jerad bortz as fiyero). cooper had some really good acting moments (particularly in popular and in for good) and i liked her chemistry with glinda (more about lindsay later though) but i just don't think she sang the part quite as well as anyone else in this post. i liked cooper in spring awakening, and looking at her other roles, i'm sure she kills it in those! she just wasn't elphaba for me.

jennifer dinoia

VERY good!!! loved her chemistry with kara lindsay (glinda). unfortunately everything abt kara lindsay is so deeply newsies to me and this was very distracting the entire time. which is not either of their faults so not a fair point of judgment. anyways. overall i really liked how they played off each other. dinoia is super underrated imo. i will say i think her defying gravity isn't the best out there, but i really love her acting overall and the wizard and i was great. she was also so cute in dancing through life so points for that. she does hopeful really well, which is really neat to see in an elphaba. also i found my old playbills later and shes one of the elphabas i saw live! so that's neat.

eden espinosa

quite enjoyed her!!! really strong belt. also quite enjoyed this glinda (megan hilty), but that's a different post. also this fiyero (derrick williams) slaps. damn this cast is just really good together. anyways back to espinosa. her acting is so good i love her. the toss toss with fiyero was fucking adorable and then the immediate switch to outrage over dr dillamond was crazy. she and hilty also have a really good dynamic i love it. alaym was also solid ("you can see houses flying through the sky but not that?" n her little laugh? man. i love elphaba). i think espinosa's biggest strength is her acting--she's a crazy good singer, too, don't get me wrong, but her acting all throughout is absolutely stellar.

mandy gonzalez

VERY much enjoyed her!!!! absolutely incredible as long as you're mine with andy karl--i think they might have my favorite rendition of that song so far. fabulous no good deed as well. i liked how she fell into the last pose at the end of that song. definitely a favorite version of i'm not that girl. took a minute for me to warm up to her acting wise, honestly, but i was very much convinced by the end.

idina menzel

watched her and kristin chenoweth and norbert leo butz and joel grey's last show together, which was a mistake because i am in hysterics. oh my god. so side note but while obviously there are many actresses who have done the role, kristin chenoweth is THE GLINDA. like she's THE glinda. there are other glindas, and there are good glindas, but kc is THE glinda. anyways. okay. sobbing. okay. so idina menzel is , like, the gold standard for elphabas obviously. she's the original broadway elphaba, the defying gravity notes are hers, she's one of the best to ever step on the gershwin wicked stage. i loooooved her passion, and i actually liked how it wasn't always plagued with defensiveness or anger. her no good deed SLAYS though. she did break a few times but i'm giving her a free pass because it was the last obc cast performance and everyone on that stage and in the room was falling apart emotionally. anyways. she's the gold standard, she really is. no words will do her justice. god. im normal about wicked.

dee roscioli

she was good! idk not super notable/memorable to me? i really did like her overall!! she's very skilled and i can appreciate that for sure. just not the best imo. dynamic with clifton hall (fiyero) was really good though, so win for both of them for that.

willemijn verkaik

FAVE FAVE FAVE. i loooooveeed her. so good. absolutely one of the best i've seen so far. her singing is absolutely showstopping. after defying gravity i had to pause and scream alone in my kitchen for a bit. her no good deed is also incredible. she also is so clearly theatre through and through--her balance of strong acting and INSANE singing was really well done. outstanding as long as you're mine, too (kyle dean massey as fiyero was also really good in that; and later the "i wish i could be beautiful for you" and "touch, i don't mind" moments made me feel insane about them). her chemistry with katie rose clarke (glinda) was also quality. fr had me thinking maybe this time glinda would go with her. maybe this time it would work out. oh and her scenes with nessa were also outstanding. for good literally sent me into hysterical sobbing so points for that. god. overall she 10000% was part of the re-igniting of my brainrot over wicked. she's so good. man. god. ok. im normal.

donna vivino

first off, did NOT know she was the original young cosette, so that's irrelevant but super cool! anyways, REALLYYYYY loved her. great dynamic with fiyero (not sure of the actor in this one), and the way she played off glinda in for good specifically was *chef's kiss*. no good deed had me absolutely SOLD on her. i think she has the best rendition of that one that i've seen. moments that remind me that i fucking love THEATRE!!!!! overall she has an incredible voice, and her acting was good as well! had me shaking and trembling during elphaba's biggest scenes (no good deed and for good in particular). i also really liked that she clearly wasn't just trying to be a carbon copy of idina menzel (as some replacements definitely do with the original actor in all roles in any show)--she instead definitely made the role her own, and i really appreciated the choices she made both vocally and acting wise.

jessica vosk

oh she had me wrapped around her finger from line ONE. her voice is absolutely gorgeous, and her acting is spot on. she has so many little gestures that i loved, little small smiles or scoffs or whatever that just felt so fitting. she embodied the character so well. her no good deed made me want to stand up and scream even though i am so cozy in bed. chemistry with glinda (allison bailey) was really solid; popular was really fun. also just generally speaking and as huge side note, her story of how she rose to broadway success makes me feel a little crazy. anyways. maybe i'll try to see her in hell's kitchen. i LOVE her voice.

[jack-kellys]

k so yall voted to see my 2023 final essay for a class called london in performance. which wasnt too serious. basically i compared the national theatre's phaedra [which i did not like that much tbh. one of the lines in my paper is "to truly send the criticism home, compared to the white critics who praised the play with four stars, Polish editor Andrzej Lukowski and Pakistani critic Arifa Akbar are the ones to only give two stars on the story that centers an illegal immigrant (The Stage)." just saying] as an adaptation of a classic greek play to the west end's general cash-in commercialization. and then my argument was that the center of that pendulum is somehow fucking newsies @ the troub im so sorry.

HERE ARE THE HIGHLIGHTS:

first of all i got to cite myself as like. an expert which was SO funny

"To preface, because of my five years of close knowledge about this subject matter, its multiple stagings, scripts, and casts, I am well aware that this musical as a whole is quite average."

importantly, my definition of a revival in this paper is "creating something accessible to a modern audience for the sake of improving and adapting an original source material into a performance". if it doesnt improve and/or adapt it then it fails imo

"Lines [in the script] that hold weight are sort of dropped, in favor of keeping the show hopeful at all times. The reflection lies in the younger generation taking hold of a new age, rather than in workers rights, child poverty and abuse, and unification.  Newsies at Wembley Park, the first professional revival and first iteration of the musical outside of the United States, flips this as a performance."

i called newsies 2012/livesies staging "left-right up-down" like a video game combo lmfao

"Wembley Park’s revival inserts viewers into the action of the city by default, but also the events that befall the newsboys.... Two police officers stalk in front of the audience as a scene with a new sense of impending doom plays out on the stage. The strikebreaking battle is... level with many of the audience’s seats, and boys escape officers and grown men through the aisles helping each other stand upright while shouts of “Move, move!” are called out .... as a pair hurry away up a ladder behind my aisle seat."

"The expansive take on staging (since as I said before, the musical itself is average) almost takes the place of design. ... Pulitzer’s desk resides on top of a platform of newspaper stacks, emphasizing his position in the hierarchy over the children selling those papers especially as the newsboys push it on with much effort. The towers are made to look like black metal with rust and peels. The lighting is white and natural during scenes. The ensemble’s costumes look more similar to each other, making them appear more unified visually compared to Broadway. The design is in the ensemble’s interactions, dance, and fluid movement through the city of the show, letting the performance and the dancers speak for themselves."

then mandatory michael section:

"What struck me the most watching it had to be Jack’s casting, and new character positionality within the context of the story. Never before has Jack Kelly been a Black newsboy union leader, not in any professional production. Played by Michael Ahomka-Lindsay, Jack’s role was much more electric. His fear of leading the strike became more personal, his baggage with the reform center gained more onstage intersectionality, his relationship with Katherine became even more complex and out of reach. It changes many of those past dropped lines, it made me hear lines differently than I had used to. It’s a more effective reflection that makes the events in the story a bit more tangible to an audience that could have initially been caught up in the grandiose dance numbers- not to mention the performance opening amidst strikes nationwide."

best part:

jack-kellys. "Welcome to..." Jack-Kellys, 23 Jan 2023, 3:46AM, this-is-what-i-mean-by-five-years-of-close-experience. 

[thefandomchaos]

I love the Livesies cast and I mean no hate to the Guzman twins because I love them as well, but Anthony and Devin should have been able to keep their newsies role as well because their skills were truly not appreciated with just them playing the Delancey Brothers, they don’t get to sing or dance in any part of the show and they weren’t even in the curtain call dance (as far as I’m aware, I’ve scan that part so many times but I can’t tell if they are part of it the dance or not due to how they filmed it) which usually all Delancey Brothers actors are in (which I imagine originated due to the fact that the Delancey Brothers actors also double playing the twins- even so, they got done kinda dirty)

[iwasonlydancing]

Song of the Day #154

"Watch What Happens (Reprise)" performed by the original Broadway cast of Newsies, Newsies (Original Broadway Cast Recording), 2012

[ill-say-anything-i-hafta]

Rocky Horror Picture Show Newsies AU

Hi, I realized today that all the characters from newsies have to be in a production of the Rocky Horror Picture Show and literally came out of retirement to write this down. Here’s the deal.

This is a college production with a shadow cast: shows are the last two weekends before Christmas break. Jack and Katharine are seniors and have been involved since they were freshmen. This time, they are reprising their roles as Brad and Janet, but their friend Medda, who always played Frank-N-Furter, just graduated and won’t be in the production this year.

Sarah is Magenta. Her brother David is only a sophomore and a rocky horror virgin (and the other kind too; in fact, he has never been kissed.) He decided it would be fun to try out for the criminologist, but he got cast as Frank instead, much to everyone’s surprise. He was horrified at first and thought about refusing the role, but ended up getting really into it. In his platform heels, he is about 7 feet tall and he looks amazing in lipstick and rubber gloves!

Racetrack plays Columbia and Spot plays Eddie. (Race is a trans guy and Spot is a cis girl; it is deliberately gender-bent casting.) Morris Delancey plays Riff Raff. He and Sarah really don’t like each other, which gives all their scenes together a special frisson. He doesn’t know any of his lines (true, he doesn’t have to say them, he just mouths them along with the actors on screen, but still!) and keeps messing up his cues, which offends Sarah’s sensibilities. His brother Oscar thinks the whole thing is stupid, but has been putting in lots of hours helping Morris practice.

You might think Crutchie would be stuck being the Crim because of the wheelchair, but no! He is Rocky. He performs totally naked except for a little gold loincloth. Elmer, who is in charge of props, helped Crutchie paint his crutches gold using paint they thought was water soluble. Turns out it is permanent, oops. Finch is the one who ended up being the Crim, which really suits his personality. He was set on the idea of having a fake mustache, even though the Crim doesn’t even have a mustache in the film. Elmer was like, sure, whatever, go nuts.

Buttons is doing costumes. He loaned Spot a leather jacket with shoulder pads from his personal wardrobe, which he will definitely never see again after the show wraps.

Darcy is the director; she is a theater major and is way too serious about everything. The cast tends to just ignore her, like Charlie Brown directing the pageant in “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” Seitz does tech for the show. Specs is that guy who says he has stage fight, but he sits in the front row at every rehearsal and performance and yells at all the callbacks, even the really weird ones that refer to things that none of them have ever heard of. (I might do a part two of this post which is all of Specs’ favorite callbacks, which of course is really just my favorite callbacks.)

Albert sells little prop bags of playing cards and party hats and toast at the door. They are also the one who asks attendees if they have seen Ricky Horror before. If anyone says no, Albert marks that person’s forehead with a red v of lipstick and later, they pull all the virgins up on stage during the preshow for public embarrassment. They are way too into this task. The preshow consists of Romeo and Jojo in wigs and teddies and fishnets, dancing to the original Eartha Kitt “Santa Baby,” mugging and shaking their hips and pushing each other violently off of Santa’s lap. Bill Hearst plays Santa.

Jack and Katherine have been dating for years, by the way, but Katherine has a crush on Darcy and maybe also on Oscar Delancey. Jack is ostensibly straight, but he and Crutchie made out once on the roof of the Life Sciences building after pulling an all-nighter. And Jack really, really likes David. Really likes him. Yeah.

Tommy Boy and Hannah and Henry and Mush and anyone elseI forgot are all Transylvanians. Practically the whole cast were already friends with each other except for David, like I said, and Spot, who showed up to the auditions out of nowhere and has an amazing alto and scares the shit out of everyone. She is the star forward on their school’s winning soccer team. Spot didn’t tell her teammates she was doing the show. She keeps missing practice to go to rehearsal or missing rehearsal to go to practice. Race, who always thought he was 100% gay, is fascinated by her.

Weisel is the head of the campus Buildings and Grounds department. He keeps accidentally-on-purpose forgetting to unlock the classroom where they rehearse. And Joe Pulitzer is the assistant dean who tells them they are not allowed to throw toast or other food at the screen in the auditorium because it could attract vermin.

What will happen when he tries to shut down the show? What will happen when the girls from the soccer team follow Spot to the dress rehearsal? What will happen when David is struck by debilitating stage fright, right before the curtain goes up on opening night? Who will make out at the off-campus cast party????

[bigmack2go]

Idk why i notice these things but Ben Cook does always play the “gay guy who isn’t actually gay”??

Like paterno: everyone calls him the f slur for something that happened TO him. (I’m not gonna get into paterno because if i do, i’ll never be able to stop) they think he’s gay. He is not.

That one law and order episode: he gets called the f slur yet again (this time by his father) even tho he is actually straight

Original sin: everyone thinks he’s gay. He isnt.

The penguin to be fair i haven’t seen this yet so i can’t say 100% but he *is* killed by smn who usually kills women??? But that doesn’t really count tbh…

Anyway

Illinoise: definitely some sort of *something* between him and henry. Also henry thought he might have a chance with carl before shelby cane into the picture so I definitely think that counts

In happiness for beginners i’m also 70% sure that in the books, they think he’s gay, then turns out he isnt

And then theres newsies

He like,,, he’s gay…. But it’s not canon. Yes yes. So thT counts too. Absolutely. Totally. I absolutely make sense rn-

Tbh westside story is the only one that i can’t find a clue of him being gay.

Aanyway the point of this post is not what you think it is.

I will make it seem a lot worse than it actually is, simply because I don’t know how to express what i’m trynna express otherwise. But that doesn’t mean that this isnt an issue. (I just wanted to make it clear first)

It’s about the fact that he’s straight. And that straight men can still “look” or “behave” twink-y whatever that means in your association.

It’s also about the fact that he keeps getting casted as that: a heterosexual twink. Because apparently casters in this century still believe in those stereotypes that-obviously- arent true