won the Tony Award for Best Musical. Adapted from S.E. Hinton’s 1967 beloved novel and Francis Ford Coppola’s cherished 1983 film, the Outsider’s centers around 14-year-old Ponyboy Curtis and his unstoppable quest to belong, survive and thrive.
“This is Tulsa 1967 and here’s just one thing you need to know. You’ve got greasers and socs and that’s how it’s always been and that’s probably how it’s always gonna go.” Ponyboy and his best friend, Johnny add, “if you’re not born into money then you’re born into despair.” While the scene contains no music, it’s a sensorial crescendo. Composers Jamestown Revival and Justin Levine found it could be even more effective that way.
“I wanted to remove any distance between spectator and character, and make visceral and real the terror of the fight and the descent into something truly nightmarish and horrifying for Ponyboy,” says Taymor."I wanted to explore and expose not just the physical cost of fighting, but the psychological and emotional cost as well. There was the idea that by the end you can't tell who is who. And that felt really important.