Playhouse Launches ‘The Outsiders’ World Premiere

The Outsiders is a new musical that will soon have its world premiere at La Jolla Playhouse. It is based on the 1967 novel by S. E. Hinton, which was made into a film in 1983 by Francis Ford Coppola. For the stage adaptation, the book was written by Adam Rapp, and the music was composed by Justin Levin in collaboration with the American band Jamestown Revival.

The story follows teenage Ponyboy Curtis (played by Brody Grant) and his best friend Johnny Cade (Sky Lakota-Lunch) in Tulsa, Oklahoma in the late 1960s. It focuses on two rival gangs, the Greasers and the Juice.

I don’t know how you spell it, but it’s an acronym for Socials, the elite, wealthy kids on the West Side. It’s like the term greaser that’s used to classify all of us East Side boys.says Ponyboy in the first chapter of Hinton’s book.

Danya Taymor is directing the world premiere production of La Jolla Playhouse and she said the characters are just trying to survive.

“This is a story about class struggle, this is a story about a chosen family and belonging, and it’s also a story about masculinity and all its forms, its tenderness, its aggression, rage and love. And at the heart of it, I think, is friendship and belonging,” Taymor said.

Enduring history

“One thing I really admire about the way Susie has written the book is that she is incredibly compassionate towards every character – even the characters she represents so honestly that she is not afraid to show the flaws in each character. a character who is only evil, who I find so honest with the world,” Taymor said.

Jaycee Aldridge

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La Jolla Theater

Director Danya Taymor talks to actors Brody Grant (Ponyboy) and Piper Patterson (Cherry) during a rehearsal of The Outsiders in an undated photograph at the La Jolla Theatre.

The Outsiders at La Jolla Theater
February 19 to April 2, 2023

Preliminary performances are held from February 19 to March 3. The premiere will take place on March 4, and she will be on stage until April. 2.

Performances:

19:30 on Tuesdays and Wednesdays

20:00 on Thursdays and Fridays

14:00 and 20:00 on Saturdays

14:00 and 19:00 on Sundays

Tickets and more information here.

The continued success of the book and film adds an element of responsibility to Taymor as she directs the musical’s world premiere, but she also embraces freedom with this new platform.

“The sense of responsibility for me is what makes me give credit to this story,” Taymor said, adding that she met Susie Hinton (author of the novel) in Tulsa while she was working on the production. “Something Susie said to me when I was there, she said, ‘Do your own thing; mine already exists. And it was very nice to receive the blessing of the author to create a version that is relevant today.”

Class, race and gender

Taymor said that this adaptation is in keeping with the realities of the time and place, but is also relevant to viewers now and in the future.

“This is Tulsa, 1967, a special time in this country,” Taymor said. The Vietnam War, poverty, class, insurrections and racially motivated violence are “a boiling point and a breaking point,” she added.

Dr. Michael Ralph, Chair of African American Studies at Howard University, is involved with the project as an anthropologist to ensure that the production closely matches Tulsa’s history. In this adaptation, several Greasers are written to be played by different actors, although Sookie – and the Greasers, who go to the same school as Sookie – are all white because their school, Will Rogers High School, was still segregated. school.

In terms of gender, Taymor said the script also leaves room for diversity and non-binary actors.

“I think in the future of this musical there could be some really interesting casting for certain characters that aren’t necessarily binary,” Taymor said. “Part of what makes The Outsiders so special is that when you read it, you can project yourself into it.”

Courtesy of The La Jolla Playhouse

Director Danya Taymor is shown in an undated photograph.

The sound that “will go home”

Music is what completely attracted Taymor to the project. The show features a nine-piece orchestra with an American sound.

“It’s funk and it’s so good and it’s so from the heart and it’s so visceral so that’s what I find really unique in the musical theater world. home, you know?” Tymor said. “He’s got a huge Bill Withers influence. There’s a bit of Bonnie Wright. There’s The Band. I just feel like it’s America in all its chaos and beauty.”

physical show

Much of the story revolves around scenes of physical combat. The choreographic team, brothers Rick and Jeff Cooperman, grew up dancing and fighting together.

“Something that was so important to me was that the language of the dance and the language of the fight and the language of the stage all felt like one,” Tymor said.

“Fighting is instinctive—as Adam Rapp says in the book (screenplay), “you have to want to run out on stage and save those kids,” Taymor said.

In one scene, “the rumble” as Taymor describes it, all 19 actors fight on stage. “It’s messy and by the end of this fight the characters are indistinguishable from each other, which I think is part of what Suzy was trying to get across.”

Next Jersey Boys?

When asked if the cast and crew were hearing rumors that the musical would be “the next Jersey Boys” — a show that started at La Jolla Playhouse before skyrocketing to Broadway success — Taymor said, that they are focused on this production. but looking forward to its future.

“I hope it goes everywhere. And even more than on Broadway, I hope it goes to high schools across the country and around the world,” Taymor said of wanting to see school theater programs use this new musical adaptation of the classic novel. “I just imagine what it’s like to be a high school student working on this stuff and what it allows young people to explore and discover in themselves – and how healthy that is. So it’s my real dream to have young people take it into their own hands and make their own versions of it, sing from the heart and explore the feelings, emotions and ways of being that society tells them not to. This is my true dream.”

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