What to know
- The Outsiders runs at Toronto’s Princess of Wales Theatre until July 26.
- The 2024 Broadway production won four Tony Awards, including Best Musical.
- Based on S.E. Hinton’s classic novel, the show tells the story of rival gangs in 1960s Tulsa through a darker, more cinematic style than traditional musicals.
- The production features standout stagecraft, including real rain effects, immersive sound and dramatic lighting.
Like Rent, like Phantom of the Opera, and like the Tragically Hip-inspired It’s a Good Life If You Don’t Weaken, the Tony Award-winning musical The Outsiders, running until July 26 at the Princess of Wales Theatre, is also for people who typically don’t like musicals — or at least don’t like big, bold, hammy, bright song-and-dance numbers.
Based on S.E. Hinton 1967 coming-of-age novel and Francis Ford Coppola’s 1983 star-filled movie adaptation, The Outsiders is dark with a storyline that includes death, bullying, gang fights and domestic abuse. And, in a trend increasingly seen in musical theatre, the actors sing “normally” — without exaggerated show-tune delivery – and could easily have careers as recording artists.
The cult classic, which finds a new audience with each generation, was adapted for the stage by Adam Rapp and Justin Levine, pits a gang of working-class kids, known as the greasers, against the privileged, wealthy gang of letterman-jacket-wearing socs (short for socials) in 1960s Tulsa, Oklahoma.
At the centre of the plot is 14-year-old “Ponyboy” Curtis (Nolan White), who lives with his older brothers, Darrel (Travis Roy Rogers) and Sodapop (Corbin Drew Ross), after their parents are killed in a car accident. Darrel is now the family caretaker, working his fingers to the bone to put food on the table, as he reminds them repeatedly.
Ponyboy is different from his friends. He is drawn to movies and books — especially Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, about the orphan Pip — and longs to leave Tulsa.
There are some cool on-stage elements to the production. It actually rains onstage, something also featured in the current Cirque Du Soleil show Luzia. Audience members on the main level are warned on their way to their seats that “patrons may be struck by small soft rubber pieces, water droplets and washable red stage liquid.” The notice also adds that “This production uses haze, flashing lights and herbal cigarettes.” There are also a few F-bombs, although no warning for that.
As for the music, the lyrics advance the storyline, and while they are not memorable the way songs from other musicals are, it makes sense they were written by a folk duo, critically acclaimed touring and recording act Jamestown Revival (Jonathan Clay and Zach Chance) and Levine. With some reworking — particularly choruses — many could easily find a life in a concert setting.
The Outsiders was nominated in 2024 for 12 Tony Awards and won four, best musical, best direction of a musical (Danya Taymor), best lighting design of a musical (Brian MacDevitt and Hana S. Kim) and best sound design of a musical (Cody Spencer).
For those who have read the novel, The Outsiders musical offers a fun and immediate way to experience the story, but for those who unfamiliar with the book or the film, it remains a timeless story of the have and have nots, of finding your place and your people, the immaturity and recklessness of youth, and how one impulsive decision can alter the course of your life forever.
