Popular media has long followed a history of casting able-bodied actors in disabled roles, a phenomenon known in disability studies as “cripping up.” From Richard III to Elphaba’s sister Nessa, physical disability is reviled, exploited, and pitied in theatre, frequently through able-bodied actors cripping up through wheelchairs, crutches, and prosthetics. The story of Crutchie Morris is complex, as his fellow newsies variously pity and lightheartedly bully Crutchie for his “bum leg,” and Crutchie himself worries about others’ perception of his disability. It’s his personality that sells his papers, he claims, but it’s his disability and crutch that others see before anything else. Unlike other disabled characters, however, Crutchie is not “cured” by the musical’s end, like Wicked’s Nessa, nor must he face death for his vile disability, like Richard III. This in and of itself is not a revolutionary portrayal of disability on stage – it is the subtle ways Crutchie finds empowerment in his disability that make him notable. In this chapter, I intend to break down the differences between the 1992 film’s treatment of Crutchy and the Broadway/tour production’s Crutchie, as well as the changes made for Newsies Jr. and notes from the Newsies production handbook provided by Music Theatre International. I will analyze these various texts and portrayals through the lens of disability studies and approach dance as storytelling with a consideration for physical disability. Finally, I will identify the place Newsies sits among the evolving landscape of disability in theatre, an imperfect but charming portrayal of disability that serves as the moral heart of the musical. 

The 2010s saw a vast increase in the popularity of Tabletop Role-playing Games (TTRPGs) such as Pathfinder, Monsterhearts, and, most famously, Dungeons & Dragons. This explosion in popularity is due in no small part to series referred to as “actual play” - streamed web series of real-life people “actually playing” a session of a TTRPG. Though there were earlier attempts by Wizards of the Coast, publisher of games such as D&D and Magic: the Gathering, to capitalize on actual play to develop and sell their products, it was the 2015 debut of Critical Role that skyrocketed Dungeons & Dragons: 5th Edition into the mainstream. Much of Critical Role’s appeal lies in its players, all professional voice actors, and their authentic and improvised interactions with each other. In a TTRPG, players are simultaneously performers, as the game inherently requires on-the-spot thinking and in-character improvisation - the “RP” aspect of “TTRPG.” During the COVID-19 pandemic, however, the “TT” aspect of “TTRPG” became almost completely inaccessible. Without the ability to exist in the same room, to gather around a physical tabletop with dice and pencils in hand, players, like performers, looked for new ways to do what they loved. In this newfound virtual space, communicating via apps such as Zoom and Discord, players turned to virtual tabletop (VTT) alternatives, an attempt to capture the magic of in-person gameplay. In this paper, I intend to analyze the role that dice and tabletops play as performing objects in TTRPGs, specifically using Dungeons & Dragons: 5th Edition as a case study. Additionally, I will break down the sudden transition of actual play shows such as Critical Role and Dimension 20 from in-person to remote as a result of the pandemic, from physical tabletop and dice to their virtual alternatives. 

As technology develops, storytelling follows suit. An oral tradition becomes a written one, written word becomes spoken through a medium such as live performance, and the advent of motion picture technology allows burgeoning filmmakers to put their own personal fingerprints on the truth. What was once, perhaps, a story of pure "truth" becomes a work "based on a true story," a fantastical retelling of that original tale. As technologies continue to evolve and methods of human communication follow suit, we arrive at a collective experience of truth that muddles the boundaries of fiction and reality. Thus emerges the phenomenon of "unfiction," a term used to refer to fictional stories that purport to be nonfiction. Through the lens of unfiction, my research has traced how various storytelling media, including theatre, film, literature and new media such as social media, create a perceived reality within a fictional world, in effect creating fiction grounded in an audience's experienced sense of truth. Techniques used in 21st centry unfiction, such as viral marketing strategies and transmedia storytelling encouraging the "factualization of fiction" (in the words of Caleb Andrew Milligan, Mise-en-scène: The Journal of Film & Visual Narration), have even been co-opted by themed entertainment, such as in Universal Studios' ad campaign for their 2023 Halloween Horror Nights event. I intend to research how themed entertainment such as Horror Nights and other haunted house attractions create a unique and immersive experience by using unfiction techniques beyond the page and the screen.