The story of the haves versus the have-nots is eternally popular, and this production makes magic with its cast and staging.Matthew Murphy/Supplied
- Title: The Outsiders
- Written by: Book by Adam Rapp with Justin Levine, based on the novel by S.E. Hinton. Music and lyrics by Jamestown Revival (Jonathan Clay and Zach Chance) and Justin Levine
- Performed by: Nolan White, Travis Roy Rogers, Emma Hearn, Bonale Fambrini, Corbin Drew Ross
- Directed by: Danya Taymor
- Company: Mirvish
- Venue: Princess of Wales Theatre
- City: Toronto
- Year: Until July 26, 2026
Critic’s Pick
Stories about rival factions of youth from opposite sides of the tracks, the haves versus the have-nots, are eternally popular. When S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders was published in 1967, it became a sensation, not least because its 18-year-old author was the same age as the characters she chronicled.
Her story of the explosive conflict between the going-nowhere “greasers” from the east side of Tulsa, Okla., and the rich-kid “Socs” (socials) from the west became a 1983 Francis Ford Coppola film and a Tony-winning 2024 musical by Adam Rapp, Justin Levine, and folk band Jamestown Revival (Jonathan Clay and Zach Chance).
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In The Outsiders musical, now at Mirvish’s Princess of Wales Theatre, the bright, new and outsized possibilities of youth clash with the weight of seemingly sealed, tragic fates. Director Danya Taymor captures these disorienting conflicts with a keen eye for sensory detail, representing the novel’s urgency with searing fire and rushing water, stultifying dust and lighthearted dance, delicate poetry and brutal violence.
The show resembles a high school summer, where time can stop in crystalline, indelible moments, while other days rush by like a speeding train. While not every song may burn itself into your memory, Taymor’s creative staging makes magic with an exuberant cast: These Outsiders work their way inside your heart.
Fourteen-year-old narrator Ponyboy Curtis (an impressive Nolan White), an orphan whose intelligence gives him a rare chance of getting out of town, is always perched on an edge, whether he’s narrating from the set’s metal ladders (set by AMP Scenography, featuring Tatiana Kahvegian), sitting atop a car that cleverly turns into a bed, or literally climbing into the audience to watch the escapist films he adores (in nostalgic projections by Hana S. Kim).
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The musical acknowledges its similarities to other shows like West Side Story and Grease, featuring songs dedicated to being 'cool'.Matthew Murphy/Supplied
The youngest of his family and his greaser gang, he’s poised on the brink between joy and disaster. When he makes an intellectual connection with Cherry Valance (a spunky Emma Hearn), the girlfriend of a particularly sociopathic Social, the hopeful moment quickly goes south for him and best friend Johnny Cade (Bonale Fambrini).
The musical acknowledges its similarities to other shows like West Side Story and Grease, featuring songs dedicated to being “cool” within a gang’s protection and the important social connotations of hair products. However, it avoids merely being Greased Side Story by placing refreshingly little importance on a star-crossed lovers plotline, its main focus instead on what draws biological and found family units together.
Rapp and Levine tighten parts of Hinton’s story to primarily focus on two triads of young men, the Curtis brothers and the secondary brotherhood of Ponyboy, Johnny and gang leader and ex-con Dallas Winston (at this performance, Jaydon Nget).
While the adaptation retains Ponyboy’s framing narration, the musical form gives its writers a chance to present a larger variety of viewpoints, particularly those of his brothers, eldest Darrel (Travis Roy Rogers), who gave up a chance at college to provide for his siblings, and middle child Sodapop (Corbin Drew Ross), an affable, earnest high school dropout.
In the novel, Ponyboy views his brothers as a hardnosed stickler and a carefree peacemaker, respectively, but here their songs showcase Darrel’s expansive love for his youngest brother and Sodapop’s stress at keeping the family together. The powerhouse vocals of Rogers and Ross soar, particularly when White joins them in three-part harmony. (Speaking of stress, Sodapop is responsible for almost all of the show’s humour, and Ross does an admirable job of occasionally breaking the tension with sweetness.)
Also strong is the chemistry between White, Fambrini, and Nget. Fambrini is appealingly vulnerable as Johnny, a neglected kid from an abusive household, and Nget’s Dallas is equal parts nurturing and dangerous, a rogue catalyst who finds his own date with destiny.
From its narrative influences to the films Ponyboy eagerly watches, The Outsiders leans into a web of references. Two of the show’s strongest songs, Great Expectations and Stay Gold, reference the Charles Dickens novel and Robert Frost poem Ponyboy reads for school.
The novel, another story about an orphan facing the difficulties of cross-class connection, serves as a metaphor for Ponyboy’s struggle between self-determination and a predetermined fate; the poem becomes a salute to optimism and wonder in a lovely penultimate number for Fambrini and White.
While these songs stand out, Jamestown Revival’s country-inflected indie folk could use more variation across the board. The lyrics of most numbers also feel more true to the characters in the moment than uniquely memorable.
Lighting designer Brian MacDevitt uses blinding, flashing beams to create a spectacle.Matthew Murphy/Supplied
What is memorable is the production’s combination of light, sound and practical effects to create powerful spectacle. Lighting designer Brian MacDevitt uses blinding, flashing beams for moments of dislocation when something feels irrevocably broken, heightening the characters’ loneliness by illuminating them separately against a sky of stars.
Small pieces of rubber form a cloud of Oklahoma dust, constantly kicked up in riotous dance or sprinkled on a grave (the first rows of the audience are in the potential projectile zone). Cody Spencer’s sound design is a lush, appealing resonant wave in most numbers, suddenly muffling the world in an immersive experience as a character’s head goes underwater.
The show’s choreographers, brothers Rick and Jeff Kuperman, seamlessly set up scene changes, incorporating long planks that carry dancers and satisfyingly slide into place as benches at a drive-in or an intimidating jump from a boxcar. The pulse-quickening rumble sequence, a balletic brawl through flashing light and pounding rain, lives up to the Tony hype; the only problem is that its sheer beauty risks glorifying the violence the novel eventually abhors.
In an added motif, Rapp and Levine present destiny as an oncoming train. Whether you find yourself on the right or the wrong side of the tracks, The Outsiders will take you on a heck of a ride.