“Each generation must, at the height of its power, step aside and invite the young to share the day.”
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Extra!”) against publisher Joseph Pulitzer. But as some movies do, it caught on in video and DVD, and started to attract a growing audience by word of mouth: the power of the slumber party to shape pop culture. “The first time I saw Newsies I was 7 years old and it was the movie. I saw the musical on
ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF DISNEY
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ewsies, meet “Fansies.” “Fansies,” meet Newsies. Oh, you’ve already met? Sealed the deal, bought the T-shirt, took the selfie, seized the day? Newsies and “Fansies” are one of those great intertwined pop cultural phenomena, in which a movie/book/TV series and a devoted, even obsessive fan base, help elevate each other to giddy new heights. Based on a failed 1992 film, the musical Newsies opened on Broadway in 2012 with a planned run of 12 weeks. Instead it played more than two years, won two Tony Awards and inspired a devoted following, overwhelmingly young and female, who call themselves “Fansies.” “Typically in theater you don’t get that kind of reaction from the fans, where they line up to give you presents and handmade art and cookies they baked,” says Zachary Sayle, who plays the newsboy Crutchie in this national touring company at the Fox Theatre. “It’s all because of them that the show became such a hit,” he says. “The relationship is definitely intense.” Jordan Wilkes, a senior at Mableton’s Pebblebrook High School for the Performing Arts, agrees. “I’m a huge Fansie,” she says. “Newsies is a classic that everyone falls in love with the moment they see it.” Well, not everyone. The movie was a box-office dud, despite songs by Disney hitmaker Alan Menken (The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast). It starred a then-unknown teenager named Christian Bale in a loose film adaptation of a real 1889 strike in New York City by newsboys (those lovable urchins seen mainly in old movies holding newspapers on sidewalks and yelling “Extra!