My Newsies Gift! (aka the most exciting night of my life)

I saw Newsies for the first time just under a month ago at their last preview performance. Unfortunately, Kara Lindsay was sick and couldn’t go on. Unfortunately, her understudy hadn’t really run through a rehearsal yet. Fortunately, Laurie Veldheer is a phenomenal actress and pulled out all of her stops and really did the role of Katherine Plumber a whole lot of justice. As amazing as she was, I wanted to see Kara Lindsay, so I knew I had to come back. That night, I also saw my favorite little Broadway actor, the one and only Lewis Grosso, as Les, and goodness can that kid sing. He adds the perfect amount of charm to the character of Les, and he is a lot like the Les in the movie! I was happy with the show.

Still, I wanted to see it again…and I really wanted to try to get tickets for Opening Night. Sadly, I realized that I couldn’t ALWAYS put Newsies first, and that I needed to stay at work to help my students. It was a heartbreaking decision to make, especially since the person who I work with said I could go if I wanted to (it’s so nice to have people understand how important something is). So, while I didn’t go to opening night, I tried to rush the first show after opening night. I didn’t get it. I must have looked pretty devastated though, because one of the Nederlander staff members told me I could see if the box office was selling standing-room-only (SRO) tickets.

When I came to NYC, I swore that SRO tickets were stupid. Who wants to stand for two to three hours with nothing to lean against or support you? But this was NEWSIES! Could I really pass on the opportunity to finally see Kara Lindsay? Could I ignore the opportunity to see Jeremy Jordan, Ben Fankhauser, Ryan Breslin, Andrew Keenan-Bolger, Mike Faist, Brendon Stimson, Ryan Steele, and Garret Hawe again? (I had to stop naming them…there’s 34 people I wanted to see again). NO! I told myself, Get in there and get yourself some tickets! Well, I was with a friend who was visiting NYC, so despite telling myself that, I needed to see what she wanted to do. Thank God she decided to get in line too! And that they had SRO Tickets!

So for some two and a half hours, I forgot that I was standing and fell into the world of the 1899 newsboys strike, and was once again awed by how amazing this production is. That’s when I made the decision to get the cast a gift. I knew they all loved candy and that Andrew Keenan-Bolger was a sucker for Hot Cheetos, but I wanted to do something original

So I brainstormed, and scoured pinterest for inpiration. There, I stumbled upon MummyDeals.org’s Candy Bar Poem (follow her on twitter or check out her blog!!!).

I thought it was creative and so I spent a few days working on a letter to send the Newsies cast, and a few more days hunting for the perfect candies to tape into place. I wrote mine out on the wrong side of wrapping paper so I could just roll it up and call it wrapped. Adding a few more bags of candy I dropped it off at the theater after work on Friday.

I hung around outside the Nederlander waiting for Alyssa to meet me for the Newsies Lottery. I had doubts about us actually winning, but I knew it would be nice to hang out with her for a little bit.

The shocker of all shockers happened…we won tickets! So we stayed in the Times Square area for the next two hours and the best thing happened…Kara Lindsay replied to my tweet! I was going to get to meet her (FINALLY) after the show (I missed her after the matinee because she hadn’t come out by the time we had to leave to take a friend to the airport).

I was on cloud nine. Things were looking bright and cheerful as Alyssa and I walked into Forever21 for a little light shopping. We weren’t having too much success, and were about to leave when my phone went off. I looked at the alert and a little squeal escaped me and my eyes teared up…Kara Lindsay had mentioned me in a tweet! with a picture!?! I couldn’t get my phone to load fast enough and I was greeted with this darling picture:

Aaron Albano, Capathia Jenkins, Andrew Keenan-Bolger, and Thayne Jasperson with the poster I sent them! (Image by Kara Lindsay)

They got my poster! And from the looks of it, they thought it was pretty cool too! I felt even more awesome! It was fabulous! I thought the day couldn’t get any better.

Oh how wrong I was! By intermission, the Official Newsies Twitter had mentioned me in a tweet that linked to their blog…and this picture:

The Newsies put my poster on their Tumblr!

I practically fainted! This was so amazing and so exciting. I was shaking with excitement and happiness. It only got better after the show when I got to meet most of the cast outside the stage door and they “sort of” knew who I was (I may have been giving them hints, nbd). I got to meet Kara Lindsay, and got my third picture with Jeremy Jordan, Andrew Keenan-Bolger, Ben Fankhauser, and Garret Hawe. It was the perfect way to spend an evening!!!