The Outsiders Stays Gold in Musical Form

Fun fact: In my house, growing up, The Outsiders was forbidden.

Not because of content, though S.E. Hinton’s 1967 coming-of-age novel has often found itself at the center of efforts to get it banned due to its bad language, portrayals of gang violence, underage smoking and drinking, etc. And, actually, not the book at all. It was Francis Ford Coppola’s 1983 Brat Pack-adjacent adaptation that was forbidden, because one scene where Ralph Macchio cut C. Thomas Howell’s hair inspired my four-year-old cousin to swipe a pair of scissors and do the same.

All that to say, walking into the Hobby Center for The Outsiders, here in Houston for just a week as part of Memorial Hermann Broadway at the Hobby Center’s 2025-2026 season, not all of us were wearing nostalgia-colored glasses. But first, the story, which begins with a young man sitting off to the side, far stage right, writing in a notebook before the lights even go down.

It’s 14-year-old Ponyboy Curtis, the youngest of three recently orphaned brothers living in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The year is 1967, and the town is split in two, divided between the moneyed folk in the west and “the grease to the east.” You could say the two sides fight like cats and dogs, but the Socs (short for socialites) are the aggressors, targeting the Greasers and recently beating up Ponyboy’s best friend, Johnny Cade, and then attacking Ponyboy for venturing west to the Rialto, the only theater showing Cool Hand Luke.

Back home, Ponyboy gets along with tenderhearted middle brother, Sodapop, but bristles under the wary, disapproving eye of Darrel, his oldest brother-turned-parental figure. He and Johnny find acceptance with their fellow Greasers, including the just-released-from-county-lockup alpha of the group, Dallas Winston. Ponyboy also connects with a girl from the Soc side of the tracks, Cherry Valance, which garners him a little more heat from the other Socs. It’s not long before things boil over, with the ongoing fight between the Socs and Greasers turning deadly.

The Outsiders premiered in 2023, its book by Adam Rapp and Justin Levine, drawn from both the novel and film, with music and lyrics by Zach Chance and Jonathan Clay (collectively known as folk music duo Jamestown Revival) and Levine. It went on to win four Tony Awards a year later, including Best Musical. The awards are a clue to what you’re in for: A familiar emotional core, set to a rootsy score with a midwestern twang, brought to you by a creative team working on a cinematic scale.

Hinton’s themes around identity, belonging, socioeconomic division, and found family are as resonant now as they were almost 60 years ago. Its teen angst is familiar, maybe too familiar at times, but the production’s staging and performances lend it a physical immediacy that keeps it from feeling stale or cliché. It lands, no sentimentality or nostalgia necessary, which is a big credit to the actors.

Nolan White captures Ponyboy’s sensitive, thoughtful nature – “so brainy,” as Sodapop says – while hitting the guilt, fear, and self-blame Ponyboy carries and grounding him in a restlessness and frustration that’s palpable. As Johnny, Banale Fambrini pairs beautifully with White. Fambrini feels impossibly young and unbearably sad as Johnny, a bruised but earnest figure who wears his trauma on his sleeve. Their duets, especially “Far Away From Tulsa” and “Death’s at My Door,” land with real emotional force.

Tyler Jordan Wesley brings swagger, confidence, and a commanding physical presence to Dallas. He’s a vocal powerhouse, too, especially in the act-one closer “Run Run Brother” and the numbers “Trouble” and “Little Brother” in the second act.

Darrel is a young man prematurely aged by responsibility. He carries the weight of the world on his shoulders, haunted by the future he’ll never get to have, and Travis Roy Rogers plays him with that bone-tired weariness. His concern for Ponyboy and his suspicion of Dallas’ influence adds tension and depth to his scenes with White. On the flip side is Sodapop, the family’s peacemaker, warmhearted and conciliatory. Corbin Drew Ross gives Sodapop an intentionally slower vocal cadence, which helps to create the impression of a simpler, cartoon-watching kid. But all’s not what it seems, as though he maintains that he dreams of “flying saucers and hamburgers,” Ponyboy reveals Sodapop whimpers in his sleep like a hurt animal.  

The relationship between Ponyboy and Cherry is present, but far from a priority. Still, Emma Hearn brings quiet sincerity to her scenes and makes a strong impact with “Hopeless War.” The show’s other notable Soc, Bob, played by Mark Doyle, is the picture of an entitled bully, a perfectly calibrated a-hole.

Director Danya Taymor leans into the story’s cinematic potential and, with such a talented creative crew behind her, the result is an eye-popping sight. Much like Coppola’s film, the production favors gorgeously stylized choices, with heightened imagery woven into the show’s DNA. Roger Ebert saw Coppola’s stylistic approach as a detriment to his film. Taymor’s approach finds a better balance, never losing sight of Hinton’s story while reaching for, and finding, something bold and visceral in the staging.

The set is raw and rundown, a wood plank backdrop that looks like it would give you splinters and a jungle gym of metal bars, perfect for climbing and hanging, swinging and perching. The canvas AMP featuring Tatiana Kahvegian have created looks grim and industrial but is flexible and ready for the actors and Hana S. Kim’s projections, which, if only momentarily, conjure up a cinema, and then the woods, with a canopy of leaves and branches turning to an open, star-filled sky and later, the vivid color spectrum of a sunrise.

Everyone inhabits this gritty world, so Sarafina Bush’s costumes – letterman jackets and bright cardigans for the Socs, dirty denim and a lack of sleeves for the Greasers – go a long way in establishing the West Side haves and East Side have-nots.

Brian MacDevitt’s lighting design is bold, with sudden blasts of color and stark contrasts. Overhead blues, reds, and blinding whites paint the violence, while headlights and flashlights become storytelling tools from his toolbox. Coupled with Cody Spencer’s sound design, the effects are deafening, immediate, and purposeful, from the crack of punches to the high-pitched ringing that mimics Ponyboy’s disorientation after getting hit. Spencer’s work amplifies the production’s showstopping bouts of brutality, making the physical stakes felt by the audience.

The special effects team, Jeremy Chernick and Lillis Meeh, delivers some of the production’s most striking moments, including a church fire that stands as a gorgeous illusion of orange light and smoke rising from a triangular roof, mimicking flames with eerie precision, and (of course) the rumble in the second act.

Choreographers Rick Kuperman and Jeff Kuperman outdo themselves. The movement of the show is muscular with a lot of pop during numbers, and it ascends to another level during the slippery battleground of the rumble, a transfixing sequence choreographed in rain, shadow, light, and slow motion. It’s a culmination of sorts across all the design elements and it makes the scene, and the production itself, all the more memorable for it.

Performances will continue at 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, and 1:30 and 7 p.m. Sunday through November 23 at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts, 800 Bagby. For more information, call 713-315-7625 or visit broadwayatthehobbycenter.com or thehobbycenter.org. $55- $265.

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