New musicals 'The Outsiders' and 'Dead Outlaw' put Oklahoma stories on New York City stages
When Adam Rapp was attending St. John's Military Academy in Delafield, Wisconsin, he started reading "The Catcher in the Rye" and found himself swept up in J.D. Salinger's classic novel — until someone stole his book.
"I went to the bathroom, I came back, and the book was gone. We had a list of books. The next book on that list on my stack of books was 'The Outsiders.' I was in a reading mode for the first time in my life, so I was like, 'I gotta read this.' ... And I really connected to Ponyboy," recalled the Tony-nominated playwright, novelist, filmmaker, actor and musician.
"I was sent away to a school. I was kind of a bad kid. I was really alone and really seeking connection. ... I needed something like that. So, when they called and they were like, 'Would you be interested in having a meeting about this?' ... I immediately was like, 'Well, this is really hallowed ground. Yes, I'll try to take a meeting at least.'"
Ultimately, Rapp and Justin Levine, a Tony Award winner for his work on “Moulin Rouge! The Musical,” wrote the book for the eagerly awaited new musical "The Outsiders," a stage adaptation of Tulsa author S.E. Hinton’s seminal novel opening on Broadway this spring.
What Oklahoma stories are heading to New York stages this spring?
In a particularly bustling season for New York theater — 18 new shows are scheduled to open on Broadway in March and April, with dozens of promising productions bowing in smaller Off Broadway venues this spring — two anticipated new musicals on the slate are quintessentially Oklahoma stories: "The Outsiders" and the robber-turned-mummy tale "Dead Outlaw."
Even for a state with a name literally synonymous with revolutionary musical theater, it's a notable impact on New York's famed theater scene.
“The rest of the world is finally discovering what we’ve known in Oklahoma for a long time. Namely, we have a unique and fascinating history with complex and interesting characters that deserve portrayal on screen and stage," said Oklahoma Historical Society Executive Director Trait Thompson in an email.
"As producers and directors continue searching for stories that will capture the attention of viewers in an increasingly fractured entertainment space, I can only surmise that Oklahoma and its people will continue to rise to the top of their lists.”
Here's a look at the two new Oklahoma musicals playing on Broadway and Off Broadway this season:
'The Outsiders' takes beloved Tulsa tale to Broadway
“The Outsiders” musical will begin its Broadway run with previews starting on March 16 ahead of the official opening night on April 11 at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre.
The new show is based on Hinton’s landmark 1967 coming-of-age novel and Academy Award-winning director Francis Ford Coppola's beloved 1983 movie adaptation, which have both managed to "stay gold" over the decades as new generations discover the true-to-life story.
Inspired by her experiences at Will Rogers High School, Susan "Susie" Eloise Hinton penned the tale of two rival Tulsa gangs — the poor Greasers and the privileged Socs (pronounced Soshs) — when she was still a teenager. She published "The Outsiders" under her initials to keep male reviewers from knowing she was a woman and immediately dismissing her work.
Like the book and film, “The Outsiders” musical is set in Tulsa in the 1960s and focuses on young Greaser Ponyboy Curtis, his two older brothers and their chosen family of “outsiders” struggling to survive in a world of haves and have-nots.
A 2006 Pulitzer Prize finalist, Rapp said fans of "The Outsiders" don't have to worry about Ponyboy doing jazz hands in the musical, which earned Hinton's praise during its world-premiere run last year at the La Jolla Playhouse in California.
"The biggest question we had in the beginning is 'Why are they singing?' We had to answer that," Rapp told The Oklahoman during the cast and creative team's January visit to Tulsa.
"They're singing because they can't articulate this in any other way. ... They're brilliant people, but they're not equipped. They don't have the tools, so it's to express themselves. I think they sing for other reasons, too, but that was the big thing we tried to philosophically answer when we started."
Along with penning the book alongside Rapp, Levine co-wrote the music and lyrics with musical theater newcomers Jonathan Clay and Zach Chance, also known as the Texas roots rock duo Jamestown Revival. Levine is handling the show’s music supervision, arrangements and orchestrations, too.
Directed by Obie Award winner Danya Taymor, the show features choreography by Rick Kuperman and Jeff Kuperman.
Also behind the scenes, Oscar winner Angelina Jolie became a lead producer on the musical last year, and Oklahoma City native Laura Galt is a co-producer on the show and has been involved in its development since 2018.
As for the cast, Brody Grant is making his Broadway debut in the role of Ponyboy, while Sky Lakota-Lynch is returning to Broadway in the role of Johnny, Ponyboy’s best friend. Brent Comer makes his Broadway bow in the role of the eldest Curtis brother, Darrel, while Jason Schmidt is a Broadway newcomer playing the role of Sodapop, the middle Curtis brother.
'Dead Outlaw' resurrects twisty tale of Oklahoma outlaw Elmer McCurdy Off Broadway
Based on the twisty tale of Oklahoma outlaw-turned-mummy Elmer McCurdy, the world-premiere musical "Dead Outlaw" begins previews Feb. 28 ahead of a March 10 opening night at Audible’s Minetta Lane Theatre.
Although the limited engagement will only run through April 7, the musical will be recorded and released on Audible at a later date, extending its reach to millions of listeners around the world. Tony winner David Yazbek and songwriter Erik Della Penna, who penned the music and lyrics for "Dead Outlaw," are planning a documentary, too.
"We're still making it. We sort of got sidetracked by having to make a whole, full-blown musical," Yazbek told The Oklahoman with a laugh by phone during rehearsals for the show.
"We came to Oklahoma to research, but we also brought cameras with us. When we started this, making this song cycle, and all of a sudden we were in COVID, my thought was, 'Well, we're not going to do this on stage anytime soon. Let's make a movie.' So, we got some friends together and got some money together and started shooting us making the songs and writing the songs. ... Part of it was going to Oklahoma to see where all this stuff had happened, to see where Elmer came from, to see where he was buried."
The musical chronicles the strange life and even stranger afterlife of McCurdy, a Maine native who made his way to Oklahoma at the turn of the 20th century as he was carving out an ill-fated career as a bank and train robber. Shot and killed by a posse in the Osage Hills in 1911, McCurdy's body was embalmed by a Pawhuska undertaker but went unclaimed, eventually drying up and mummifying.
McCurdy's corpse spent six decades traveling the country as a macabre attraction in sideshows, wax museums and low-budget movies. The "Dead Outlaw" eventually ended up covered in phosphorescent paint and hung from a rope in the Laff in the Dark funhouse at The Pike amusement park in Long Beach, California.
The cast and crew of the television show "The Six Million Dollar Man" were filming there in 1976 when a grip grabbed the arm of the hanging "mannequin" and accidentally broke it off, revealing a real human bone and starting a search for the origins of his grisly find.
"Dead Outlaw’s" cast will feature Jeb Brown, Eddie Cooper, Andrew Durand, Dashiell Eaves, Julia Knitel, Ken Marks, Trent Saunders and Thom Sesma.
Yazbek said he has been haunted by McCurdy's bizarre saga for decades, and after he shared it with his friend and bandmate Penna, they eventually decided to write songs about it.
"That's when I realized, 'Oh, you know, what's missing? It's the conversation about what this is about and why it's so interesting to not just me and Erik but to everyone you tell the story to.' ... If it puts its hooks into us and to people we tell the story to, then we can do the same to a theater audience. But we have to do it in the right way — in an entertaining, artful, exciting, affecting way," Yazbek said.
"I started getting images in my head, and it was not a stretch for me to call (book writer) Itamar Moses and (director David) Cromer, who I'd done 'The Band's Visit' with — and we've had great success with it. Before you knew it, we had our team making a show."
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Two Oklahoma stories are bowing on Broadway and Off Broadway this spring
