#a m burrage

[phantomato]

I wrote one treat for the recently-revealed Hurt/Comfort exchange this year:

To Be Haunted, One Need Not Be a House AO3

The Attic - A. M. Burrage, Stanley Forbes/Derek Wilson, 2.9k, Explicit

Stanley and Derek meet at the Moat House, ten years on.

This fic is based on a ghost story with a charming reading available on YouTube. I listened to it, thought it was indeed great fic fodder, and put together this treat back in April. I hadn’t planned on waiting so long for reveals!

There’s a lot for me to love here: the interwar era, the potential for a reunion between the characters, the deep empathy that Stanley has when watching adolescent Derek react to the trauma of having seen a ghost. The hurt/comfort theme was perfect for them. This has definitely opened me up to reading more old ghost stories, which I’ve started doing, but the slashiness in this one has proven unbeatable so far. :)

[screamingeyepress]

Gather ‘round the Christmas fire for an eerie tale: Smee by A. M. Burrage. A ghostly game of hide-and-seek awaits!

[i-am-the-prettiest-boy]

PLEASE I NEED PEOPLE TO BE IN THE OLD GHOST STORIES FANDOMS WITH ME I NEED SMEE FANART I NEED AN AU WHERE JOHN AND MAY GET MARRIED NORMALLY I NEED TO NOT BE THE ONLY ONE

[hiidenneiti]

It happened that about three weeks later I shuffled my household goods. Those who live, or have lived, in two rooms understand the deadly monotony of that sort of existence. You get sick of the sight of your small possessions. The best way to overcome that is to move them about—shift the bookcase from one wall to another, turn the table so that its long ends are where its flanks used to be, find new places for the pictures and ornaments.

The Little Blue Flames. A. M. Burrage: The Little Blue Flames and Other Uncanny Tales by A. M. Burrage. Nick Freeman (toim.). British Library Publishing, 2022.

[saveugoodmadam]

The Triple M squad are the spiritual successors to Sky Flaherty, Ben Cook and Josh Burrage. To me.

[masterblackoak]

Playmates by A. M. Burrage #audiobook

[theremightbecupcakespodcast]

Episode 32: What The Dickens

Episode 32: What The Dickens

In that environment, if you didn’t embrace the fear as fun, the fear would overwhelm you. —Carla, episode 32 Listen to “What the Dickens: 32” on Spreaker.  The list of stories Dickens specifically wrote for Christmas over the years. All but The Cricket on the Hearth have some sort of horror element to them (The Cricket is fantastical): A Christmas Carol (1843) The Chimes (1844) The Cricket on…

[mythomagicannabeth]

something to believe in

katherine: you snuck up on me jack kelly, i never even saw it coming.

friend: [making serious face, looking at me dead in the eye] that's straight

[therefugeofbooks]

Here are some Christmas ghost stories for those of you in need of something spooky this season!

Told After Supper by Jerome K. Jerome

The Story of the Goblins who Stole a Sexton by Charles Dickens

The Old Nurse's Story by Elizabeth Gaskell

Smee by A. M. Burrage

The Irtonwood Ghost by Elinor Glyn

Horror: A True Tale by John Berwick Harwood

Christmas Meeting by Rosemary Timperley

Markheim by Robert Louis Stevenson

The Ghost of Christmas Eve by J. M. Barrie

Thurlow's Christmas Story by John Kendrick Bangs

The Kit-Bag by Algernon Blackwood

The Crown Derby Plate by Marjorie Bowen

[nightmareonfilmstreet]

And To All A Good Night: Scary Ghost Stories of Christmases Long, Long Ago

New Post has been published on https://nofspodcast.com/good-night-scary-ghost-stories-christmases-long-long-ago/

And To All A Good Night: Scary Ghost Stories of Christmases Long, Long Ago

There’ll be scary ghost stories, and tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago…. – Most Wonderful Time of the Year

There’s always been a thin sliver of fear in the underbelly of the Christmas Season. Rosy-cheeked Father Christmas, with his sleigh and his magical deer, is only one side of the Christmas coin. On the other side is the biting heart of unforgiving winter: totems of the sunless cold. Across the world, jollity is tempered with whispered words of warning. Be good, for Krampus, wrapped in shadow, waits to whisk away the naughty children off into the cold, black night. Be good, or find your intestines replaced with straw and pebbles by Frau Perchta, the Germanic spirit who punishes the misbehaved. Be good, or never be seen again. Behave, or die.

The old myths and folklore are not the only Christmas stories with teeth. Modern pop culture has its share of Holiday horrors. Take The Exorcist, in which the Devil climbs into the soul of a little girl, to tell a grieving priest exactly what his mother is up to in hell. Or in Black Christmas, when the psychotic murderer practically makes Christmas cookies out of human skin. John McClane just wanted to come out to the coast, get together, and have a few laughs. Instead, he has to deal with that whole Nakatomi Tower thing, with the terrorists, and the glass in the feet…just a rough Christmas Eve all around.

But there is a particular comfort in the juxtaposition of the macabre and the merry. The Season is a shelter of sorts, perhaps. There’s security in being surrounded by family and friends, the unforgiving wind shut away outside, a comfort in the murmuring glow of coals behind the tarnished brass fender that hems the fireplace. Standing by the soot-blackened bricks, fragrant glass of cognac warming in hand, talking of good times past beneath the beatific glow of the angel atop the tree, we are emboldened to examine the darkness beyond the pane. Our comfort is compounded by the fear and the unknown outside, in knowing that we are nestled safely, warmly away from it.

What’s that? Why, yes, I have been reading dozens of nineteenth-century English ghost stories just lately. How did you know?

Of all the long and varied traditions of Christmas, the telling of ghost stories on Christmas Eve is the one most unjustly relegated to history. The Christmas Season is, after all, largely one of nostalgia. There are few things more nostalgic than unfurling intrigue in an idyllic English manor, ruminations in waistcoats, wood-paneled rooms with shifty servants looming through languorous wreaths of aromatic pipe smoke, carrying evening tea or an announcement of a late stranger at the door. All the while, snow falls heavy and hushes the impenetrable wood outside, where men long dead are seen, sometimes, to walk.

I’m telling you, this stuff is great!

As with all things rooted in an age before smartphones (or airplanes, or the internet), old traditions faded with the coming of new fads and holiday rituals, it can be difficult to dig in and find the good stuff. To know where to start. So. Here’s a little primer on two of the best English ghost stories to read by gaslight this Christmas. (I’m not including Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, because everyone and their Muppets have read or watched it.) We’ll explore some nuance of the tradition as we go. So pour yourself some Armagnac brandy, light a fine fill of black shag, and pull your housecoat closer.

Pay no mind to the knocking from the red room, for surely ‘tis the wind.

Smee, by A.M. Burrage

No,” said Jackson, with a deprecatory smile, “I’m sorry. I don’t want to upset your little game. I shan’t be doing that because you’ll have plenty without me. But I’m not playing any games of hide-and-seek.

Burrage’s unsettling short story starts with two of the hallmarks of great Christmas ghost stories: a group of adult friends gathered for a game on Christmas Eve, and the storyteller (our protagonist) telling their story very hesitantly.

The story is short, and ruined if I give too much away. Here’s what you need to know: Jackson will not play because he stays at a house where a little girl was killed playing a hide-and-seek game in the dark. The game she was playing finds children standing in the dark, in silence. And, once upon a time, Jackson played the game…at the house where she was killed.

The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James

The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as on Christmas Eve in an old house a strange tale should essentially be, I remember no comment uttered till somebody happened to note it as the only case he had met in which such a visitation had fallen on a child.

By many accounts Henry James’ short novel The Turn of the Screw is the best ghost story ever written. It is the quintessential silent scream, building on subtleties and minute cracks and little oddities that function to slowly twist the reader (and the heroine) into stark fear. And, perhaps, madness. As with all great English ghost stories, the tale starts around a fire on Christmas Eve. The main story, told by the host of the house, is told with reticence.

He tells the story of a young woman who is hired as governess for two children at a remote manor house. Learning that the previous governess had died under mysterious circumstances, the young governess inquires about her new job, and the children she is to oversee. That’s when things take a turn. Something is changing the children. Calling to them. Corrupting them. Something always a windowpane away, or just around the corner of a doorway…gone when our heroine turns to look.

There are sounds in the night, and a skeletal, sparse wood on the grounds in which sounds are heard and children are lost, and found. Children’s games, somehow sinister beneath the surface, like a smile an inch too wide. Letters written in a fine hand, in pale ink. There is the corrupting hand of paranormal evil, and there is unutterable tragedy.

And to All a Good Night

The ghosts of English authors past are a perfect bow on the rosy gloaming of Christmas. There are terrors and tension, but these stories deliver a delicious shiver. They may be horrors, but as Stephen King noted in Danse Macabre (1981), horror sells best in times of peace. When better than the season of Peace on Earth and Good Will to Men?

And besides, Christmas lights are most beautiful in the dark.

[weirdletter]

Chill Tidings: Dark Tales of the Christmas Season (British Library Tales of the Weird), edited by Tanya Kirk, British Library Publishing, 2020. Cover design by Mauricio Villamayor with illustration by Sandra Gómez, info: shop.bl.uk.

This titles follows on from previously successful Tales of the Weird Christmas title Spirits of the Season, subverting ideas of traditionally comforting festive anthologies with dark stories of the eerie and uncanny. Exploring stories from beloved authors such as Charles Dickens alongside works by more unexpected names such as Elinor Glyn, plucked from the Library archives, Chill Tidings continues a long tradition of ghost stories for Christmas. The gifts are unwrapped, the feast has been consumed and the fire is well fed – but the ghosts are still hungry. The ghosts are at the door. Welcome to the second new collection of dark Christmas stories in the Tales of the Weird series, ushering in a fresh host of nightmarish phantoms and otherworldly intruders bent on joining or ruining the most wonderful time of the year. Featuring classic tales from Algernon Blackwood, Rosemary Timperley, Sheridan Le Fanu and Elinor Glyn alongside rare pieces from the sleeping periodicals and literary magazines of the Library collection, it’s time to open the door and let the real festivities begin.

Contents: A Strange Christmas Game – Charlotte Riddell The Old Portrait – Hume Nisbet The Real and the Counterfeit – Louisa Baldwin Old Applejoy’s Ghost – Frank R. Stockton The Fourth Wall – A. M. Burrage Transition – Algernon Blackwood The Festival – H.P. Lovecraft The Crown Derby Plate – Marjorie Bowen Green Holly – Elizabeth Bowen Christmas Re-union – Andrew Caldecott A Christmas Meeting – Rosemary Timperley Someone in the Lift – L.P. Hartley Told After Supper – Jerome K. Jerome

[broadwaycantdie]

How do you know so many newsies? I’ve frankly gotten a lot better at it than I used to be (I can easily recognize Mush/Romeo/Specs/Albert/Finch/Spot/Race/etc, and I’m getting better at recognizing Tommy Boy/Elmer/Henry, and I’m working on recognizing Buttons) but there’s still some newsies who I have no idea who they are, like Sniper, Mike/Ike, Smalls, and more. So I was just wondering if you have some tips??

this is actually something i love helping people with ! it can be super hard to figure out who is who especially when watching the show and everyone is moving around, dancing, and wearing practically the same outfit over and over, but these are my tips as well as who plays each character !

( i’ll skip main characters as well as the ones you listed )

also i’m gonna do this based on LIVE cause that’s what most people have access too but i’ll also put who they’ve been played by in the rest of the run

also also, the best way i would say to remember them (and what i do) is just memorize the actors honestly, i just made a list of everyone in each cast (which i would be happy to share) and studied it and pointed them out as i watched or looked at pictures and matched them up and eventually got it

Buttons:

played by Chaz Wolcott in live

tall and lanky pale white boy

always a smiley boy!

lowkey constantly looks confused

find him tap dancing the best

he “won’t be last in line for the tub tonight” when he sees his face in the pape :)

also played by: JP Ferreri, Jess LeProtto, Damon J. Gillespie

Elmer:

played by Anthony Zas in live

medium height white boy

curly floof hair boy

smiles a lot

very confused / doesn’t know what’s going on a lot of the time but excited about it

pants are pulled up VERY high (higher than everyone else’s)

also played by: Evan Kasprzak, Jeff Heimbrock

Henry:

played by MJ Rios in live

curly hair

short poc boy

wants a “pastrami on rye with a sour pickle” in king of new york :)

has the prettiest whitest teeth i’ve ever seen

^ smiles to show them off a lot

also played by: Kyle Coffman, Iain Young, Demarius R. Copes

Hotshot:

played by JP Ferreri in live

tall(ish) possibly poc boy

brooklyn boy

red shirt w/o sleeves

skinniest of the brooklyn newsies (in live)

during the run the brooklyn boys were constantly being switched out and hotshot didn’t get a name until live (to my knowledge) so it’s hard to say who played him

Jojo:

played by Joshua Burrage in live

very tall lanky white boy

wants “a solid gold watch with a chain to twirl it” in king of new york

smiles a lot

often in close vicinity to race

also played by: Corey Hummerston, Thayne Jasperson, Nico James Greetham

Kenny:

played by Jack J. Sippel in live

medium height white boy

very happy to be here

gorgeous teeth

spins his pape bag around his ankle in carrying the banner

only in live, although some swings during the run didn’t have names so they could technically also be kenny

Kid Blink:

played by Andy Richardson in live

short poc boy

no eyepatch even though he should so it gets confusing

gets lost in the crowd easily

also only in live (by name)

Mike / Ike:

played by Jacob and David Guzman

twins !

medium / shortish curly haired poc boys

David plays Ike because “I” comes before “M” in the alphabet and “D” comes before “J” (David is alphabetically before Jacob and Ike is before Mike as well, so they line up)

easy to point out because they are twins so just find two people that look the same

Jacob has a freckle on his nose (not cheek)

David has a freckle on his cheek (not nose)

in everything but live, the Delaney brothers also double as Mike and Ike

Jacob ( Mike ) wear a checkerd shirt

David ( Ike ) wears a stripped shirt

also played by: (Ike) Brendon Stimpson, Jon Hacker, Anthony Norman // (Mike) Mike Faist, Adam Kaplan, Michael Patrick Ryan, Devin Lewis

Smalls:

played by Julian DeGuzman in live

very short poc boy

smiles a lot lot

does the spoon fight with Race in king of new york

is one of the 2 newsies to be played by females (not in live)

also played by: Laurie Veldheer, Molly Jobe, Josh Assor

Sniper:

played by Daniel Switzer in live

medium / tall pale white male

usually looks very serious or angry

the other newsie to be played by females (not in live)

also played by: Scott Shendenhelm, Alex Wong, Jacob Guzman, Ginna Claire Mason, Kaitlyn Frank

Tommy Boy:

played by Michael Dameski in live

just look for the most technically correct and perfect dancer (they are all great but Dameski always has perfect technique and likes to show it off)

also he has the thickest eyebrows of everyone!

has a very bad american accent (he gets like one like and it’s hard to hear but when you do you can tell)

looks very serious all the time

also played by: Tommy Bracco, Evan Autio

——————————————————————————

heres some pics that i hope help too ( the unnamed swings or swings filling in for characters i left blank to avoid being wrong or causing confusion ) // and if i couldn’t see their face and i couldn’t tell who they were they are also blank

LIVE

—

BROADWAY ( Jeremy Jordan - Corey Cott era )

—

TOUR ( Dan Delcua - Joey Barrerio era )

[hiidenneiti]

The Wrong Station. A. M. Burrage: The Little Blue Flames and Other Uncanny Tales by A. M. Burrage. Nick Freeman (toim.). British Library Publishing, 2022.

[backgroundensemble]

Okay, don't get me wrong, I love all my newsboys, but sometimes I have a hard time remembering which is which. Is there like a master post somewhere with a bunch of labeled pictures or something? Please help me tell my boys apart.

Okay, here we go! A comprehensive guide to the Newsies! Under the cut because holy shit

(This only refers to the Live recording. Not bootlegs, not OBC, not the 1992 movie. I’m not doing the main Newsies (Jack, Davey, Race, Les, Katherine, and Spot) because they are obvious)

Albert

Portrayed by: Sky Flaherty (rhymes with charity)

Noticeable traits: Red hair, backwards cap, arm muscles

Noticeable lines: “A leg of lamb,” “Nobbin with all the mockety-mocks,” “Ever think about getting into moving pictures? Buy a ticket, they let anyone in!”

Noticeable actions: Hugs Race a lot, dances with a stick in KONY, center stage in Seize the Day (can’t abbreviate that one :/ )

Buttons

Portrayed by: Chaz Wolcott

Noticeable traits: face structure and shape (hard to describe but very easily to pick out of a crowd), thin build, smile

Noticeable lines: “He sold her for a box of cigars!” “A mother and a father?” “I won’t be last in line for the tub tonight!!”

Noticeable actions: Dances with a broom in KONY, 

Elmer

Portrayed by: Anthony Zas

Noticeable traits: S m i l e, thicker build

Noticeable lines: “I dunno, sister, but it’s bound to rain sooner or later” “Just give me half a cup!” “I guarantee!”

Noticeable actions: Smiling literally all the time, 

Others: Also portrays a Brooklyn Newsie in the movie, but although he isn’t named, he is widely accepted as a different character. 

Finch

Portrayed by: Iain Young

Noticeable traits: Tall, carries a slingshot in most scenes

Noticeable lines: “Half them strikers is laid up with broke bones!” “Try any banker, bum, or barber. They almost all knows how to read!” 

Noticeable actions: Punches the air a lot, very expressive with arms in general, starts wearing just a grey undershirt from Seize the Day through the end of the play

Ike

Portrayed by: David Guzman

Noticeable traits: One of the twins, curly brown hair, blue striped t-shirt, brown socks, grey hat

Noticeable lines: N/A 

Noticeable actions: Shirtless in the beginning of the second Newsies Square scene, on stage left of Mike in Carrying the Banner, whimpers like a dog with Davey after the line “Pulitzer’s poodles” in KONY, dances on the stage right table in KONY

JoJo

Portrayed by: Joshua Burrage

Noticeable traits: Tall, large nose, very expressive

Noticeable lines: “Front page and you ain’t even dead!”, 

Noticeable actions: Stands on Jack’s stage left during the strike discussion (seriously, just watch his face, he’s so priceless the entire scene), does a lil nod with Race in Carrying the Banner (I’ll have to gif this later, it’s beautiful), 

Kenny

Portrayed by: Jack Sippel

Noticeable traits: This one is difficult because Jack Sippel is in two (2) scenes. He’s in Seize the Day and the Finale. But he is in live! So when you see this extra Newsie in the background, now you know his name!!

Noticeable lines: N/A

Noticeable actions: N/A

Other: Jack Sippel also plays Darcy which is this handsome lil guy

but he’s not a Newsie (technically). Also look at that suit. You’re never gonna have a problem picking him out of a crowd.

Kid Blink

Portrayed by: Andy Richardson

Noticeable traits: RED SHIRT????? (thats for brooklyn!), very dark dirt smudge on left cheek, backwards cap

Noticeable lines: “Who are you gonna trust? Them? Or them?”, 

Noticeable actions: Scabs, stands next to Specs in Carrying the Banner, one of the two Newsies who doesn’t get a line in the Curdled Coffee sequence

Mike

Portrayed by: Jacob Guzman

Noticeable traits: One of the twins, curly brown hair, plaid long-sleeved shirt, brown hat, blue socks

Noticeable lines: N/A

Noticeable actions: on stage right of Ike in Carrying the Banner, dances on the stage left table in KONY, hugs Race at the end of KONY

Mush

Portrayed by: Nick Masson

Noticeable traits: eyes, butt, wearing just a tank top in KONY

Noticeable lines: “Now there’s a headline even Elmer could sell!” “Papers is all I got,” “Sirens is like lullabies to me. The louder they wail, the better the headline. The better the headline, the better I eat. And the better I eat…”

Noticeable actions: Tries to fight Snyder in Seize the Day, stick fights with Romeo in Carrying the Banner

Romeo

Portrayed by: Nico DeJesus

Noticeable traits: Thick striped shirt, whack-ass socks

Noticeable lines: “You’re out of your league, Kelly!” “Back to the bench, Slugger, you struck outs!” “Methinks the lady needs to be handled by a real man,”

Noticeable actions: Flirts with Katherine and also possibly Darcy, gets freaking DECKED by a cop

Smalls

Portrayed by: Julian DeGuzman

Noticeable traits: the most expressive Newsie. Seriously, watch this guy whenever he’s on screen. energy is at 110% the whole time. Other than that, very little lines/actions

Noticeable lines: N/A

Noticeable actions: N/A

Other: Often written as a girl in fanfics and headcanons due to being portrayed by a women in the Original Broadway Cast

Sniper

Portrayed by: Daniel Switzer

Noticeable traits: Tol, prominant cheekbones, ice blue eyes

Noticeable lines: “Oh, what the hell. My father’s going to kill me anyway!”

Noticeable actions: Scabs

Specs

Portrayed by: Jordan Samuals

Noticeable traits: Glasses

Noticeable lines: “I’ll save you the walk. They upped their price too!” “Queens will be right here backing us up… as soon as we get the nod from Brooklyn,”

Noticeable actions: Gets the note from Crutchie in the refuge to Jack, shows Katherine the rooftop, taps one foot really really fast in KONY like wtf how did he do that?

Tommy Boy

Portrayed by: Michael Dameski

Noticeable traits: Arms, yellow striped shirt, eyebrows on fleek

Noticeable lines: “I’m with you!”

Noticeable actions: Scabs, pretty expressive too actually, he does many of the Newsies!Live exclusive stunts

And then, because I’m Extra:

Bart (Brooklyn Newsie)

Portrayed by: Andrew Wilson

Noticeable traits: Arms

Hotshot (Brooklyn Newsie)

Portrayed by: JP Ferreri

Noticeable traits: gap tooth

Myron (Brooklyn Newsie)

Portrayed by: Stephen Hernandez

Noticeable traits: Toll angry

If I forgot anything or you want me to add anything, let me know!

[thekingofsantafe]

//excuse me while I scream because Joey Barriero and Josh Burrage are part of the Bronx Tale tour. And I'm going to see it. I'm S C R E A M I N G

[sunlitblue]

O M G IM GONNA CRY I JUST FOUND OUT THAT JOSHUA BURRAGE PLAYED SPECS IN THE PRODUCTION OF NEWSIES I WENT TO GO SEE A FEW MONTHS AGO. I DIDNT KNOW ABOUT MANY ACTORS BACK THEN OH MY GOD. NOOOOOO

ansdksks that’s HEARTBREAKING, u could’ve met an icon :/