Finally, some good news for the Broadway musical. “The Outsiders,” a roots-rock-fueled show that makes stage magic out of adolescent rivalries, has become profitable.
The production, which opened in April 2024 and won the Tony Award for best new musical two months later, has recouped its $22 million capitalization costs, one of the show’s lead producers, Matthew Rego, said in an interview.
The milestone, though occasionally achieved by plays and musical revivals, is an increasingly rare one for new musicals, which have historically been central to Broadway’s artistic and economic life but have struggled mightily since the coronavirus pandemic. Only three other new musicals that opened in the last six years — “Six,” “MJ” and “& Juliet” — have become profitable; the Bobby Darin musical “Just in Time” is likely to be the next one to get there.
“This is incredible for every single person that has poured their guts and their heart and their soul into the show, and for the investors who believed in it,” said Danya Taymor, the Tony-winning director of “The Outsiders.” She added that the show had been perceived as risky because of its stark presentation of “violence and death and loss and longing.” “We tried to push theatrical form,” she said, “and hopefully this means that taking artistic risk is OK.”
As of Jan. 18, the show had 763 performances on Broadway, had been seen by 781,000 people, and had sold $121 million worth of tickets. So why did it take so long to recoup? Because revenue is not the same thing as profit — it costs money to run a show, and to pay off pre-Broadway development costs.
Recoupment means the show can now start sharing profits with producers, investors and artists. Actors who participated in certain developmental workshops are contractually entitled to profit-sharing, and some members of the creative team will benefit as well.
“The Outsiders” was adapted from S.E. Hinton’s classic 1967 novel about teenage gangs in Oklahoma. Widely read in schools, it has sold millions of copies; many people also know the story from Francis Ford Coppola’s 1983 film adaptation, featuring Tom Cruise, Matt Dillon, Rob Lowe, Ralph Macchio and Patrick Swayze.
The musical leans into adolescent heat and makes a meal of the story’s violence, peaking with a rain-soaked rumble that is a master class in contemporary stagecraft.
The show, which has drawn school groups and young fans from the start, has worked hard at nurturing online word-of-mouth — increasingly important in Broadway marketing. One sign of success: The show’s publicists say songs from the cast album have been streamed over 85 million times across all platforms.
The musical, like many, had a long journey to Broadway. It was the brainchild of Fred Roos, a producer and casting director for the film, who in 2013 suggested it to a Broadway production company called the Araca Group — made up of the brothers Matthew and Michael Rego and their childhood friend, Hank Unger. The producers, believing a show would benefit from an Americana sound, enlisted the band Jamestown Revival to write the score; over time they added the playwright Adam Rapp (“The Sound Inside”) to write the book, and, ultimately, Taymor, then an up-and-coming director, to lead the creative team. None of them had musical theater experience; the producers enlisted Justin Levine, a Broadway veteran, as musical supervisor, and he wound up collaborating on the music, lyrics and book.
Taymor made two important early decisions. She suggested removing all adult characters, to focus on a world of unsupervised adolescents. (There’s still a police officer, but Taymor said she imagines him as young, too.) And, seizing on the centrality of brawling to the story, she wanted to integrate dancing and fighting, so she hired the brothers Rick and Jeff Kuperman to choreograph both.
A planned run at Chicago’s Goodman Theater in 2020, with a partially different creative team, was scuttled by the pandemic; instead, “The Outsiders” began its stage life in 2023 at La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego, where Angelina Jolie saw it and then signed on as a co-producer.
The show has already expanded beyond Broadway, with a touring production traveling around North America. The producers said they hope to stage productions in Britain, Asia and Australia.
The producer Matthew Rego said the show’s recoupment proves that “it’s still possible.”
“It’s always going to be hard,” he added, “but just because something is hard doesn’t mean you’re not going to have people still diving in wanting to do it.”
Michael Paulson is the theater reporter for The Times.
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