The Tony Award-winning musical “The Outsiders” kicks off its North American tour this month with a highly anticipated six-day run at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center Oct. 7-12.
Based on the iconic novel by Tulsa’s own S.E. Hinton, the show premiered on Broadway in spring 2024 at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre. The musical had been in development for years, originally being announced in 2019 but seeing delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“That actually worked in our favor,” explains Patricia Chernicky of Tanninger Entertainment, a Tulsa-based entertainment firm working to help produce and finance shows on Broadway, the West End and beyond, as well as build and create new projects for both the stage and screen. “(The showrunners) just kept honing the whole project, and it just got better and better and better.”
Tanninger Entertainment is among the list of producers who worked to bring the show to life, which also includes Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures, The Araca Group, actresses LaChanze and Angelina Jolie, and the original “Outsiders” film director Francis Ford Coppola under American Zoetrope.
The trio of Tulsans behind Tanninger Entertainment — Jay Krottinger, Ryan Jude Tanner and Chernicky — became involved with the musical at its beginnings in 2019. Established that same year, Tanninger Entertainment was the formal result of a yearslong friendship and working relationship between the three producers.
Prior to uniting with Chernicky under the Tanninger name, Krottinger and Tanner had helped to produce Broadway shows from 2011-2019 as Square 1 Theatrics, with Chernicky investing in their shows during that time.
“When we founded Tanninger, we asked Pat to consider joining us as partner,” Tanner says. “She’s more family than friend or partner … she also gave us a huge amount of legitimacy.”
Setting the Stage
While attending graduate school for theater at the University of Central Oklahoma, Krottinger helped set the foundation for Tanninger’s musical production work in 2011 with his involvement in developing “Flipside: The Patti Page Story.” The 2012 musical followed the soft-spoken singer from Claremore’s wildly successful journey as a recording artist, and it played off-Broadway at the acclaimed 59E59 Theaters in New York City.
“At that time, we were in need of hiring a legal counsel to represent us for that project. And that’s when we got introduced to the production of ‘Pippin,’” Krottinger explains. “That was the very first Broadway production we produced.”
Since working on “Pippin,” a 2013 Tony Award-winning revival project, Krottinger, Tanner and Chernicky have helped facilitate global box office sales of over $700 million through “The Outsiders” and other projects including “Memphis the Musical” (2014 Olivier Award nominee, Best New Musical), “Waitress” (2016, Tony Award nominee, Best New Musical), “Come From Away” (2017, Tony Award nominee, Best New Musical) and “Oklahoma!” (2019, Tony Award winner, Best Revival of a Musical).
“We had been raising money for projects on a one-off basis, meaning that when we would get involved to produce or co-produce a production, we would go to our investors and pitch the project and seek resources as an investment one at a time,” Krottinger explains. “We were trying to think of a more unique way in which we could pool money into a fund and do multiple investments and make it risk-averse so it was a bit more attractive for our investors.”
This led to Tanninger Entertainment’s 2019 establishment, which allowed Chernicky to fully leverage her expertise as a Certified Public Accountant to lead their investment strategy after years of working alongside Tanner and Krottinger to support up-and-coming shows.
“Since then, we’ve embarked on two entertainment funds to help funnel resources so we can not only produce but also invest in other projects,”
Krottinger says. “If there’s any way possible that we can participate in a project that has an Oklahoma tie, we’re going to do our very best to participate as long as we believe it’s a viable project.”
It was an easy decision to get involved when the Tanninger team heard about plans to bring “The Outsiders” to Broadway, especially since Krottinger, who grew up in Tulsa, shares a personal tie to the source material.
“Our neighbors Jimmy and Barbara, who used to babysit me, are actually related to Susie Hinton,” he says. “Jimmy is Susie’s cousin and he actually inspired the story of ‘The Outsiders.’”
A new direction
Krottinger explains that the delayed debut of “The Outsiders” musical caused a scheduling conflict with the show’s original director Liesl Tommy, who left the production to direct the Aretha Franklin biopic “Respect” starring Jennifer Hudson.
“That put our general partners into a unique position to really vet, at that juncture, the right group of creatives to be involved in the rest of the development,” Krottinger says. “Through several different interviews and one-on-one interactions with Susie Hinton and also the writing team for the music and lyrics, we landed on Danya Taymor.”
Krottinger notes that at the time, Taymor’s primary experience had been in directing traditional plays, making “The Outsiders” the first musical she ever helmed.
“The way you go about directing your musical is not necessarily how you direct a play,” Krottinger says. “A play director, and the way they see things on stage and the way that they’re going to direct is very different from the way you direct a musical, and (Taymor) executed that at the highest level.”
“She brought a new vision to the piece that really focused on getting the story as well as the music right,” Tanner adds.
Taymor took home the Tony for Best Direction of a Musical in 2024 for “The Outsiders,” and went on to receive a second consecutive Tony nomination this year for Best Direction of a Play for “John Proctor is the Villain.”
She visited Tulsa several times throughout the development of the show — first in 2022 to draw inspiration for set design. She then returned with the principal cast of the Broadway production in January 2024. This past July, she came through town again with the cast of the North American tour, which she is also directing.
“Tulsa is an incredibly special place for us who have been making ‘The Outsiders’ musical now for many years,” Taymor said at the July press conference at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center revealing the stars of the North American tour. “To bring the principal cast here and allow them to be in your city and to see these places, and to get to just be the part of where the story was created is so important to us. This is such a special story.”
Krottinger credits the Broadway cast’s January 2024 visit as “an authentic springboard into the next steps,” as rehearsals began just one week later.
“I don’t think that the depths of which you experience the cast on stage would be what they are if it had not been for the visit to Tulsa,” he says.
Timeless tale
As the young cast members — many of whom are in their late teens to early 20s — made their visits to Tulsa, Krottinger draws a parallel to the up-and-coming actors who came to Tulsa decades ago for Coppola’s 1983 film adaptation.
“That movie launched the careers of so many prolific actors we know today,” Krottinger says. “This musical, particularly opening on Broadway, launched the careers of 16 young actors who, under normal circumstances on Broadway, would not have the opportunity to do so at such a young age.”
The Tanninger team agrees the show, which received four Tonys in 2024 including Best New Musical, Lighting Design (Brian MacDevitt and Hana S. Kim) and Sound Design (Cody Spencer), has a multi-generational appeal.
“Everybody of all generations is familiar with this book,” Chernicky says. “They’re still reading it in school, and they’re reading it all over the world.”
“When you’re at the show, there’s everyone from (ages) 14 or 15 through 90,” Tanner explains. “You can hear grown men — you know — sniffling.”
Tanner attributes the emotional reactions in part to Taymor’s story-driven directing and powerful base material.
“It is a storytelling experience that surprises people, because so often they think of (‘The Outsiders’) as maybe the film, particularly younger folks and folks who didn’t grow up in Oklahoma,” the Illinois native says.
“I didn’t read the book until later in life, I was only familiar with the movie. And so, to now see it on a stage in this format, told this way, was really pretty groundbreaking in terms of what Danya has done … the multi-dimensional aspect of it is just really extraordinary.”
Krottinger adds that thematic elements of the show help set it apart from other productions on Broadway.
“There’s something extraordinary that happens when you experience the musical — there’s a visceral, tangible, relatable exchange that one has when they see and experience on stage in front of them, particularly for men, brotherly love,” he says.
“I think it’s difficult for American men to connect with other men in a way which isn’t distracting to the fact that it’s just friendship. And there is so much brotherly love in the way the story is told, that I think it really resonates with audience members of all ages, but in particular, those who struggle with being able to connect with their emotions and feelings that they’ve never experienced before. And that’s more to Ryan’s point, you know, you hear grown adults who probably would not necessarily cry at a musical — the entire story resonates with them.”
Building excitement
Now that the musical is being taken on the road, the production is eager to reach new audiences.
“In every market that this tour shows up, young people who are reading the book or have seen the movie, or now, know the musical and the music, are going to get to see and experience it in their own communities,” Krottinger says.
At the July cast announcement, Taymor echoed the excitement.
“To be able to now bring this across the country to places, to people who may not be able to travel to New York to see the show, but who love this story, or people who are going to discover the story for the first time, is so special,” she said. “And obviously we would not be able to start any other place besides Tulsa.”
Many of the touring cast members met each other for the first time during the July visit to Tulsa. The reality was beginning to set in for Nolan White, who is portraying Ponyboy Curtis on the tour.
Playing Ponyboy, he says, “it’s daunting, because it’s so iconic. I’m excited to find my own spin on it — see what we can do differently. Because Danya is all about giving the actor freedom … She’s given us so much great advice already.”
“It’s really surreal to actually be in the setting of the story,” Jordan DeAndre Williams, who also will portray Ponyboy for certain performances, says. Both actors were most looking forward to visiting Admiral Twin Drive-In to see “Fantastic Four: First Steps.”
Tulsa Performing Arts Center CEO Mark Frie says the July visit provides the cast an extra layer of context. “To be able to go to The Outsiders museum, the Admiral Twin and Rogers High School is a bonus most actors aren’t able to experience,” he explains.
Launching the tour in Tulsa “just feels right” to Frie. The venue anticipates large crowds for each showing.
With the popularity of the show, Frie encourages fans to be careful of third-party ticket scalpers and to “always purchase tickets at tulsapac.com.”
Coming soon
Tanninger Entertainment is not only excited the show is making its way to Tulsa, but they are also proud the production has put a Tulsa story in the spotlight in New York City and beyond.
“There was this really incredible response that people couldn’t believe this town that we all care so much about was now having a new light set on it in ways that maybe we hadn’t even had a thought of or thought were possible,” Tanner says.
“The name Tulsa is said over and over and over and over in a Broadway house,” Krottinger adds. “We couldn’t ask for a better way to advertise for and to promote Tulsa, Oklahoma.”
Looking ahead, Tanninger Entertainment is working on several projects, including one with another Oklahoma legend.
Tanner remembers being at a nonprofit event in Dallas when he received a text message from an unknown number.
“I’m sitting at the table and I click it, and it’s a video of Kristin Chenoweth backstage,” Tanner says, “asking for the three of us to come look at her new show.”
“When the Queen calls, you answer,” Krottinger says of the Broken Arrow native.
The entire Tanninger team visited New York for a reading of the new Broadway-bound musical “The Queen of Versailles.”
“There was Kristin Chenoweth, and there was (composer and lyricist) Stephen Schwartz, and here we were getting to be involved in their next project,” Tanner remembers. The team is co-producing the show, along with being involved in its development and financial backing.
Based on TV personality Jacqueline “Jackie” Siegel, “The Queen of Versailles” begins previews Oct. 8 at the St. James Theatre in New York City.
Tanninger is also involved in the recently announced development of “Oh l’amour – The Erasure Musical,” which will feature music and lyrics of the iconic British synth-pop band duo Vince Clarke and Andy Bell of Erasure. The production is being developed in partnership with Sony Music Publishing.
Krottinger is thankful to be a part of bringing these larger-than-life productions to audiences year after year.
He says Broadway “is a very, very hard business, but it’s exhilarating … We are so lucky that we get to participate in once-in-a-lifetime moments.”