The Tony® winner for Best Musical comes to Segerstrom Hall

The nighttime rumble of another fight between rival groups of high school teens. Insults and threats, the flick of a knife. An altercation between the Greasers—the outsiders—and their rivals, the Socials from the rich part of town, turns violent when Greasers Ponyboy Curtis, aged 14, and his best friend Johnny get pulled into a brawl that doesn’t end well. 

The Outsiders, the Broadway hit musical, comes to the Center next month. It’s the winner of four Tony^® Awards, including Best Musical.

The story began as a coming-of-age novel written by S. E. Hinton in 1967 when she was 16 years old. It has sold more than 14 million copies since its publication and continues to sell roughly 500,000 copies annually. “The Outsiders has the power to inspire an entire generation,” says Entertainment Weekly. 

The Socials think Greasers—from the disadvantaged side of town—are troublemakers who will never amount to anything good, and they do everything to maintain their power. In this heartbreaking story of unrequited love, gang repercussions and friends who are hurt or die, it seems like the cycle of alienation will continue. It’s difficult to find your way out of that narrative when everyone has you labeled, and even good deeds are misinterpreted.  

It’s a story worth visiting again on stage. “The musical version has been made with so much love and sincerity it survives with … its heart intact,” says The New York Times. “Though this is the first musical Tony winner [Dayna] Taymor has directed, she brings with her a … gift for complexities of pain and varieties of darkness.” 

“This musical breathes new life into the narrative,” Austin magazine says. “What truly elevates this production is its technical brilliance,” praising the set design, lighting and choreography as “nothing short of breathtaking.”

The Outsiders features a book by Pulitzer nominee Adam Rapp co-written with Tony Award winner Justin Levine, and music by Jamestown Revival. In fight scenes, the choreography by Rick and Jeff Kuperman and lighting effects by Brian MacDevitt are astonishing. 

Hollywood superstar Angelina Jolie would agree. She is the lead producer and a very involved one at that, thanks to her daughter Vivian. Jolie saw an early adaptation at La Jolla Playhouse with her 15-year-old, who had seen it previously and loved it. She encouraged her mom to get involved and Jolie agreed, seeing the opportunity to not only help the show, but spend more time with her daughter, who became a producer’s assistant on the show. 

Jolie was not just a name on the marquee. She worked with other producers to get the production to Broadway. The creative team welcomed her involvement. Co-writer Levine told Deadline that the actress had a fresh perspective and challenged them to think about why they were doing things in a particular way. Cast members noted her “nurturing qualities” and said she was rooting for their success. 

Jolie told People magazine that the production has a profound ability to foster community, highlight resilience and focus on themes of class divides, belonging and finding one’s place in the world. She shared with Entertainment Tonight that taking the role also allowed her to get to know her daughter better as they were able to deepen their bond through their shared passion for live theater. 

* * *

Reflecting on the rumble with the Socials and the deaths of two of his friends, Ponyboy tells his brothers that while he loves being a Greaser, he wants more out of life than gang fights. His brother Sodapop asks him about what he was writing in a notebook he keeps close, and Ponyboy reveals that it’s a story of events that have happened throughout the past months. He reads the opening sentences out loud to them, revealing them to be the opening lines of the actual The Outsiders novel. 

Maybe there’s hope yet for his future.  

*A motto the Greasers share. It comes from a poem, “Nothing Gold Can Stay” by Robert Frost, who writes that gold is nature’s “hardest hue to hold.” Ponyboy recites the poem in the musical.

Segerstrom Hall
October 20–November 1