#medda larkin

one more thing on women's history month but, like... there is no newsies conversation without women. historically, girl newsies existed on both sides of the strike force -- some as supporters, like annie kelly, and many as scabs. women have existed in every iteration of newsies in some form -- from ann-margaret and ele keats in the movie, to kara lindsay and capathia jenkins (among others, of course) on broadway, to the uk where we got an entire group of brooklyn newsgirls and a female spot conlon in the amazing clarice julianda and lillie-pearl wildman. the junior version of the show features multiple girlsies written into the script. women have been at the heart of this fandom for its entire existence, contributing amazing fanworks and content, and -- perhaps most essentially -- today, they are at the heart of newsies' continued existence! any local production of newsies will have a ton of girlsies, often making up more than half of the ensemble. at the local level, women are often the ones contributing the turn sequences, the high harmonies, and the crisp tap sounds. i'm not saying you have to abandon your favorite newsboys. no one is. but as a woman, any production of newsies that casts any of their lead newsies female means something to me. it's a way to add very real representation to a show that has consistently lacked it. this march, let's lift up all of the women that have made this show great, and try not to understate their importance in newsies's historical fabric.

If you think of Santa Fe as Jack's allegory for heaven, everything becomes a LOT sadder. Him telling the newsies that he had family there he wanted to see, was he lying or was he talking about his brother and mom? When he told Sarah he planned to leave when the strike was over, to what extent did he want to leave? When Roosevelt gave him the advice that convinced him to stay, did he know what he was talking Jack out of? Was he promising Crutchie something darker than he realized? When he painted the desert for Medda, was he telling her where to find him? Did Jack want escape or did he want death?