Total Newsies Trash

New Ben Fankhauser song care of Kooman and Dimond

Sorry, just seeing this now!

I actually was not a fan of Newsies prior to seeing the tour. I was living in NYC when it opened on Broadway but was too busy to see anything on Broadway, and I had seen the movie on VHS when I was a kid (probably about 7 or 8 years after it came out) and wasn't, like, transfixed. When the tour was announced and happening, I was living with family in Boston. I grew up doing theater with Jacob (not professional, just stuff at camp) and I've always been the kind of person who will show up for people years after we stop seeing each other on a regular basis because I like to celebrate my friends' accomplishments. He was also one of the nicest people I knew, and I felt bad for having drifted apart (I had tried to get our core friend group together multiple times over the years but one girl was basically like "stop trying, nobody cares" and looking back, she was probably wrong but I didn't want to hear that from multiple people so I just kinda gave up) so it was really important to be there.

I saw the show in Boston on the last night of the tour, and his performance completely blew me away. I'm a very anxious person by nature and I think he played his Davey a lot more anxious than Ben did (and no shade to Ben, I ADORE Ben) which made Davey's accomplishments that much more rewarding to see because it read like he had much more at stake. I thought he worked very well with Dan, and I felt as if their connection was more based in their character work than Ben/Jeremy's who, I felt, worked well together because they knew each other before Newsies. I CARED about the characters (mostly Davey, of course, but all of them) after I saw the show and Jacob's performance. I think I still would have had fun if he had never been cast or if I had a time machine and got to see it on Broadway before finding out he was in the tour, but I don't think I would have become a full-fledged Fansie.