A rain-soaked street rumble, a Tony-winning pedigree, and a real-life donation drive for Orange County foster youth are all sharing the stage at Segerstrom Center for the Arts this week. The touring production of “The Outsiders” opened in Costa Mesa on Tuesday and runs through November 1, bringing S.E. Hinton’s 1967 novel about rival teenage gangs in 1960s Tulsa to Orange County audiences who likely first encountered the story in a middle school classroom.
As reported by the Los Angeles Times, the stage musical is based on the same Hinton novel that Orange County schools still teach, a coming-of-age story about the Greasers and the wealthier Socs set in Oklahoma in 1967. The production, which runs a limited 16 performances at Segerstrom Center for the Arts at 600 Town Center Drive in Costa Mesa, stars Nolan White as Ponyboy Curtis and Bonale Fambrini as his best friend Johnny Cade, with Ponyboy also navigating a romance with Cherry Valance, a Soc, according to the same Los Angeles Times report. Tickets start at $49.01.
Hinton was just 15 years old when she began writing the novel in Tulsa, and it has since sold more than 15 million copies in 30 languages, per Britannica. The book's path to literary staple wasn't immediate — Hinton's first royalty check totaled just $12 before librarians and middle school teachers helped push the novel into the young-adult canon, Mental Floss notes. Hinton went on to write “Rumble Fish” and “Tex,” and the Los Angeles Times reports she even appeared as a nurse in the 1983 film adaptation directed by Francis Ford Coppola, which starred Matt Dillon, Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, Tom Cruise, Emilio Estevez and Diane Lane alongside Hinton herself.
A Rain-Soaked Rumble and a Historic Tony Win
The stage version, which opened on Broadway in April 2024, swept four Tony Awards including Best Musical at the 77th Annual Tony Awards, also taking home Best Direction of a Musical, Best Lighting Design and Best Sound Design, according to Playbill. Director Danya Taymor's win made her the sixth woman in Broadway history to take home that directing trophy, a milestone noted by Duke University. The musical's book comes from Adam Rapp and Justin Levine, with music and lyrics by Jamestown Revival and Levine, and choreography by Rick Kuperman and Jeff Kuperman, per the Los Angeles Times.
One of the production's signature moments is a rain-soaked rumble scene inspired directly by Coppola's film, blending dance and hand-to-hand combat while 100 gallons of water pour across the stage, the Los Angeles Times reports. Photographer Matthew Murphy has documented the production, which has become a genuine commercial phenomenon: the Broadway run recouped its full $22 million capitalization in December 2025 after 744 performances at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, according to Playbill. The touring production followed suit even faster, recouping its $11 million capitalization after just 29 weeks on the road, having already been seen by more than 548,000 theatergoers across 23 cities by May 2026, Playbill reported.
Local Ties and a Suds Drive for Foster Youth
The touring cast includes a notable Southern California connection: Travis Roy Rogers, a Carnegie Mellon School of Drama graduate, plays eldest brother Darrel “Darry” Curtis in his professional stage acting debut, as Hoodline previously reported when the tour stopped at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood. That engagement preceded the show's arrival in Costa Mesa, continuing a national run that has also touched down in Denver and is headed to San Francisco's Orpheum Theatre in December.
Segerstrom Center for the Arts is using the run to spotlight a local cause. The venue has partnered with Santa Ana's Orangewood Foundation for “Sodapop's Suds Drive,” collecting laundry detergent, pods, dryer sheets, lint rollers and other laundry supplies in bins placed on the plaza and orchestra levels, according to the Los Angeles Times. Orangewood Foundation was established in 1981 as Orange County's first public-private partnership shelter for abused and neglected children, per the Orange County Business Journal. As of late 2025, the foundation reported annual revenue of $43.1 million and has launched a five-year strategy to triple its transitional housing capacity from 72 beds to 250 by 2030, the same outlet reported.
The drive's name is a nod to Sodapop Curtis, the musical's middle brother, and ties the story's themes of youth struggle and brotherhood directly to the needs of Orange County's foster and transitional-age youth population. The pairing arrives as Segerstrom Center marks its 40th anniversary season in 2026, continuing its role as Orange County's primary venue for large-scale Broadway touring productions, Hoodline reported earlier this year. “The Outsiders” is scheduled to run at Segerstrom Center through November 1.
