April 28, 2024: I completed my bite out of Broadway today with my eighth show in six days — The Outsiders — based on S.E. Hinton’s novel and Francis Ford Coppola’s movie adaptation. It’s a visceral musical, steeped in the street warfare between the blue-collar Greasers and the socially better-off Socs. The comparison may be unfair, but it is hard not to think of West Side Story while watching events in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1967.
I was not persuaded by a lot of the show, certainly not as much as the rest of the audience that whooped and hollered their enthusiasm throughout. Many of them appeared to be young, and if they are drawn to material like The Outsiders perhaps they represent the new generation of theater goers that Broadway so desperately needs.
Here’s hoping they can afford to return to Broadway and maybe see better work, like Water for Elephants or The Notebook.