'The Outsiders' Stays Gold
The musical adaptation of S.E. Hinton's novel rightfully earns its stage time.
There’s a wall of noise, a train coming straight at you in a tunnel, and yelling, voices of boys who are just kids calling for help. There’s a flash and it’s raining, pouring. The train is far away now, but still getting closer and closer — or is it someone’s heart beating, louder and louder? There’s a punch; another; another; boys with fear and determination on their faces, putting up their fists in defense. Someone’s getting knocked over, bodies on bodies are getting knocked over, mixing blood with dirt.
This is the rumble of “The Outsiders” on Broadway, one of the most haunting portrayals of violence I’ve ever seen on stage. The rumble is a climax between the show’s warring groups of feuding teenagers in the 1960s south: the Greasers, who are poor boys from the east side of town, and Socs, the rich, upper-class.
This staging of one of the novel’s iconic scenes, among others, and the fluid, heartwarming moments in between, are what makes “The Outsiders” earn its place as a stage adaptation. I’m usually wary of shows with existing IPs, but “The Outsiders” blew my expectations mostly out of the water, particularly for how it chose to stage the difficult and dirty parts of this story. It uses its stage form to put a shine on a well-beloved tale.
“The Outsiders” takes place in Tulsa in 1967, as the first song tells us, blatantly, and follows the story of Ponyboy Curtis (Brody Grant, though I saw his lovely understudy Trevor Wayne) and his Greaser friends. Like the novel, we hear the tale from Ponyboy’s perspective. He starts the show by singing us a rundown of everyone in his life, including his brothers, his fellow Greasers, and the rival group, the Socs.
The music is fitting of the time and setting, giving a pleasantly folky feel with singable melodies. When the entire cast starts singing “Tulsa 1967,” it feels like the ideal, big American musical: full and warm.
Yet not every song truly earns its place. The lyrics often made me wince; they’re sometimes incredibly explanatory, telling us exactly what’s going on while also showing it on stage. Ponyboy sings us his name, age, and whole family backstory, and when his brother, Darrel (Brent Comer), gets his stage time, we just get a redundant retelling of their family dynamic. At the drive-in — which is wonderfully set with real cars on stage, and planks and tires swiftly repurposed as park benches — the song’s lyrics assume we can’t see what’s going on. “‘Cause it’s Friday night / and it feels so right / yes, it’s Friday night at the drive-in.”
When a song does earn its place, however, it feels like magic. “Great Expectations,” a song Ponyboy leads while he’s reading the Charles Dickens book of the same name, is a top-tier “I Want” song — giving us the depth and emotion from his character, showing his actual motivations to get out Tulsa and do something bigger with his life.
My favorite song, though, comes later, from the toughest Greaser: Dallas Winston (Joshua Boone). He’s a hard-shelled leader and a runner from every place he’s known; a death in the Greasers group doesn’t just soften him, but breaks him. We hear it in a song called “Little Brother” that cracks open his grief. Boone’s falsetto to heart-aching belt, with the chorus of Greasers behind him, is a song that moves you, painfully. “Little Brother / Sorry I failed you,” he sings. “I could not save you / No I can't even save myself.”
For a show with an ensemble of numerous named characters, most everyone shines in their moment. Even Greasers without their own songs or stories, like Ace (Tilly Evans-Krueger), fly in impressive choreography, literally jungle-gyming across people’s backs and around the stage.
The Socs hold their own in their choreography, but they’re mostly painted as one-sided, evil characters. Cherry Valance (Emma Pittman), who serves as Ponyboy’s Soc love interest, feels more like a fleeting teenage crush than a meaningful line crossed. I didn’t mind the brush over their relationship in this version, though; the show’s focus on Ponyboy’s other Greaser relationships, especially with his friend Johnny Cade (Sky Loyota-Lynch, though I saw Josh Strobl), were more worthy of their stage time. We get to see how tragedy, fear, and shared circumstances bond these boys together.
It’s in those loud and soft life-changing moments where the show seamlessly ebbs and flows with energy and emotion. In one moment, we’re hearing the screeching inside of Ponyboy’s mind as he’s nearly drowned, and the silence as his friend Johnny protects him in a way that can never be undone. In another, the two are lit softly in the stained glass glow of a church, sweetly leaning against one another. In the next, they’re running on the top of a train, makeshift with planks and tires from the set; then, those planks and tires become a bleak hospital bed.
Translating these iconic moments of a beloved novel aren’t easy, but it’s a challenge “The Outsiders” has successfully risen to. With a talented cast and the illusions of live theater, this production not only shows the dirty, rough edges of these teenagers’ lives, but the beauty and love in them, too.
“The Outsiders” has tickets open through January 2025, and if the TikTok buzz and rush line lengths tell us anything, it shouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon.
How I found out about it: I saw the very early Instagram and TikTok ads that just showed the men of the cast dancing. The marketing team clearly had a specific audience in mind, which were definitely the girls in front of me who gasped every time one of them did anything, especially when Sodapop (Jason Schmidt) takes his shirt off for “no” “apparent” “reason.”
Why I went: The Tony buzz definitely made me curious, and I saw a clip of the rumble on TikTok (shhh) that really hooked me. Seeing the performance at The Tonys got me even more excited, and even though I’d seen it recorded, seeing it live was still one of my favorite scenes of the show.
How I got tickets: My grandma got us tickets right before The Tonys because I had mentioned it was nominated for Best Musical. Smart woman! “The Outsiders” has become one of the more competitive tickets, with their rush lines filling up as early as 5 a.m. They offer both standing and seated (with a partial view) rush tickets, and a $30 under 30 rush discount. They also offer a digital lottery.