I SAW BEN FANKHAUSER IN SOMETHING ROTTEN!! THE SHOW IN SACRAMENTO WAS INCREDIBLE!! this post is me dumping all my random thoughts out so I don’t forget them! (also I am a ben fankhauser fangirl so forgive me for only focusing on him lmao)
- it was kind of surreal seeing ben live in person. i’ve watched newsies live so many times and watched his singing videos on youtube so many times it was magical seeing/hearing him in person
- his smile was so bright i could see it from literally the last row of the theater <3
- ben’s nigel was an energetic nervous wreck and his body language was so animated and funny. he gave off newsies act 1 anxious davey energy x100
- he would hunch over and bend his knees to make himself smol at times where he was nervous and would throw his whole body into hugs with nick, like literally shrink down and put his entire head under nick’s chin and bury himself into nick’s chest type of bear hug
- there was one scene where nigel hugs nick and nick tells nigel to go to sleep and nigel’s like, “okay!” and immediately ragdolls and collapses dead asleep
- also, get yourself someone who looks at you the way ben looks at jackie burns singing right hand man <3
- in the scene right before right hand man when bea gives nigel the bowl of boiled cabbage, he shoves his entire face into the bowl to eat it
- and when nick and bea kiss at the end of the song, he dramatically turns his whole body away like he was a little kid disgusted at seeing his parents kiss lol
- ben and halli toland’s scenes together as nigel and portia were so cute!
- at their first meeting portia speaks normally and nigel is so head over heels in love he can only aggressively grunt out “uH huH” to everything she says (the audience loved this and laughed a lot)
- hearing ben sing i love the way was everything i dreamed it would be
- when nigel was reading his poem to portia before we see the light, he had to really dig around his pants crotch pocket to get the paper out and when he unfolded the paper, his hands were shaking so bad it was cute (the audience also loved this scene)
- idk if this was intentional, but one side of the strap of nigel’s messenger bag came off during one of the scenes as he was moving it around (he wasn’t wearing it) so he just carried it around in his hands/arms for the rest of the scent (it was fixed for the later scenes)
- ben can dance!! he was really feeling the music and jamming out during will power and we see the light
- it was so cool to see how they adapted the scenes/choreography for a 360 degree stage, they made use of the aisles really well and the stage could spin and parts of it would raise/lower
- it was funny when the ensemble members were in their egg costumes slowly walking down the aisles for their entrance and i could see them in my peripheral vision just slowly inching down the aisle
- and the tech run crew would run up and down the aisles delivering and removing props at the edge of the stage and also bringing in platforms and additional steps for the actors to use in the aisle
- the set was simple since it was a 360 degree stage but made great use of flying in simple set pieces that showed the location of the scene
- there was so much spike tape on the stage to mark where props go and it reminded me so much of doing theater in school and i miss it so much
- okay that’s enough of me gushing about ben and about tech stuff lmao
- oh also i didn’t realize stuart marland was also in the show?? (woooo go newsies obc!)
- and jackie burn’s voice is so amazing!! i could listen to her version of right hand man all day. i mean obviously it was incredible, she’s jackie burns, but just wanted to state the obvious lol
- okay this is really the end goodbye ty if u made it this far in my ramblings
