Theatre 2026: The Outsiders @ Princess of Wales Theatre

The Outsiders is a powerful coming-of-age novel written by Susan Hinton in 1967 when she was just sixteen. Set in her hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma, the story is inspired by her personal observations of close friends who were in a gang and specifically by an incident where a friend was beat up just for being from the wrong side of the tracks.

The novel details the conflicts of two rival gangs, divided by their socioeconomic statuses as working-class, low-income “Greasers” versus upper-middle class “Socs” (short for Socialites). It is told as a first-person narrative from the main protagonist, a sensitive, intelligent, and bookish 14-year-old boy named Ponyboy (Michael) Curtis who finds beauty in sunsets and escapism in books and movies. Recently orphaned when their parents were killed in a car accident, Ponyboy and his 16-year-old brother Sodapop (Patrick) are being raised by their oldest brother Darryl who had to quit school to support the family. They are members of the Greasers, which include Ponyboy’s best friend Johnny Cade, a shy boy who comes from an abusive home, and Dallas (Dally) Winston, the oldest, toughest and most disillusioned member of the gang who has a criminal background but is fiercely loyal to those that he is closest to.

At the movies one night, Ponyboy establishes an unexpected connection with Sherrie (Cherry) Valance, the girlfriend of Bob, leader of the Socs. This eventually leads to a violent confrontation that results in tragedy and drives the rest of the plot. To save Ponyboy from being drowned by the Socs, Johnny stabs and kills Bob in self-defence. Dallas gives the frightened kids money and helps them escape to an abandoned church in the countryside. While in hiding, the boys discuss the meaning of a Robert Frost poem titled “Nothing Gold Can Stay” that describes the innocence of youth that is transient. After a few days, Dallas comes to them with a plan to drive them to the next state but they decide instead to return home and turn themselves in. As they leave the church, it catches on fire, possibly from a lit cigarette that Ponyboy tossed away. Children on a field trip are caught in the fire and Ponyboy rushes back in to save them with Johnny hot on his heels. While they are able to rescue the kids and are hailed as heroes, Johnny Cade is seriously injured when a burning beam falls on him. To settle their differences over Bob’s death and Johnny’s condition as well as establish the dominant gang, the Greasers and Socs hold a “winner-takes-all” rumble which the Greasers win. When Johnny succumbs to his injuries, Dallas is overwrought with grief and commits “suicide by cop”. From his deathbed, Johnny encourages Ponyboy to “stay gold”.

The book explores class wars, identity and belonging, family and friendship, loyalty, and not becoming jaded (i.e. “staying gold”) despite life’s inequities and unfairness. This modern-day classic has sold over 15-million copies and has been translated into 30 languages, emphasizing the universality of the theme of feeling like an “outsider”.

A 1983 film adaptation of The Outsiders directed by Francis Ford Coppola included a stellar cast of young actors, many of whom went on to become big stars. This included Patrick Swazye as Darryl, Rob Lowe as Sodapop, Ralph Macchio (pre–Karate Kid) as Johnny Cade, Emilio Estevez and Tom Cruise as other Greasers, and Diane Lane as Cherry Valance. Matt Dillon and Leif Garrett, who were already famous, played Dallas and Bob respectively. Ironically, the lead role of Ponyboy was played by C.Thomas Howell who, despite a healthy film and TV career, is arguably the least known of the cast today. The gritty movie follows the main plot points of the book quite faithfully while cutting out details on the Curtis family’s backstory and dynamics. The film also plays up the fight and death scenes for dramatic effect, especially the big rumble and Dally’s death.

Coppola agreed to direct the movie after receiving an impassioned letter in 1980 from a librarian in Fresno, California, and her seventh and eighth-grade students, pleading with him to adapt the novel into a film. The book had greatly connected with the students, especially boys who did not typically read much. Hinton had also received letters from fans including ones who told her “how much the book influenced their life choices”.

A musical adaptation of The Outsiders opened on Broadway in 2023 and won Tony awards in 2024 for best new musical, as well as best direction, lighting design and sound design in a musical. We just watched a touring production of this show and can attest that these awards were well-deserved, especially the technical ones. The show starts with Ponyboy sitting alone on the edge of the stage writing into his notebook. He quotes the opening lines of the novel, which also happens to be the closing lines of the novel: “When I stepped into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home”.

This leads to the opening number,” Tulsa 67”, with lyrics that introduce the characters and describe the backstories of the Curtis family, the Greasers, the Socs, and life in Tulsa in 1967 for the haves and the have-nots. A reprise of this song at the end of the show acts as a bookend for the musical. It recaps Ponyboy’s character growth through his traumatic experiences as he finally understands how much his brothers love and need him. Darryl has a couple of emotional songs (“Runs in the Family” with reprise, “Throwing in the Towel”) that highlight his frustrations with trying to keep his brothers in line and his regrets for the life he gave up in order to keep the family together after his parents died. Sodapop gets his moment in the song “Soda’s Letter” where he pleads for Ponyboy to come home.

I thought the songs do well to service the story, although there is not much nuance or sophistication to either the lyrics or the melodies. But what makes the show special is its stagecraft and the innovative use of lighting and sound effects. As Dallas helps Ponyboy and Johnny escape on a train while singing the jazzy song “Run, Run Brother”, that train is simulated through the use of some planks and rolling car tires with lighting and sound effects bringing the train to life. Unlike the source material, a train is also the vehicle by which Dallas commits suicide while singing “Little Brother” to convey his angst and despair about Johnny’s death. The best use of lighting and sound effects is in the choreography and staging of the climatic final fight between the two gangs. The rumble scene happens in darkness and pouring rain (requiring 180 gallons of recycled water per performance) with a pulsating soundtrack that includes sounds of thunder and the rumbling and horns of passing trains. The fight scene comes across as a violent and visceral dance. The simulated punches and kicks are accentuated with loud, gut-wrenching smacking sounds and flashes of light, as the heads of the actors jolt back and their bodies flail outwards in reaction to each attack. We first experienced this during the 2024 Tony Awards where the cast performed the scene and have been excited to watch this show ever since.

There is also effective use of video throughout the musical, such as the screenings of movies in the background as Ponyboy is speaking about or actually watching a movie, including clips of films featuring his idol, Paul Newman. Video backgrounds are also used effectively to reflect the glow of the sunsets that Ponyboy and Cherry bond over, and the glowing fire raging through the church.  At the end of the show during the bows, the orchestra appears as videos above the actors and then remained in view after they left.

Whether intentionally or not, The Outsiders seems be influenced by, or at least reminds me of, iconic musicals of the past. When Ponyboy survives an initial beating by the Socs and is initiated into the Greasers in the song “Grease got a Hold”, the setting and choreography around an old car in a garage brings to mind “Grease is the Word” from the musical Grease. Dally’s defiant final moments before being struck by a train reminded me of Javert’s suicide in Les Miserables.

The most obvious comparisons must be with West Side Story since they both deal with rival gangs, although the reasons for the rivalries differ. Deviating from the novel or the movie, the Outsiders musical introduced a female Greaser named Ace, reminiscent of the character of Anybodys in West Side Story. Ace does not have much of a speaking role and seems to be there just to fill out the dance numbers. The location and dance sequence of the Friday night drive-in scene in the Outsiders, where the two gangs congregate, seems like a callback to the “Dance at the Gym” in West Side Story. Cherry’s song “Hopeless War” pleading with Ponyboy not to fight in the rumble parallels with Maria asking Tony to stop the fight in West Side Story.

I thought the Outsiders musical did an admirable job of reflecting the novel, including allocating songs that allow characters like Darryl, Sodapop, Johnny, Dallas and Cherry to express their inner thoughts and emotions. I did think that in following the narrative of the novel, everything that followed the pivotal rumble felt a bit anticlimactic. I also felt that the orchestration was a bit too loud for some of the songs, drowning out the lyrics a bit. But overall, I enjoyed this musical very much and thought that it deserved its Best Musical Tony Award.

Theatre 2026: Shaw Festival - One for the Pot, Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense, Sleuth

This year at the Shaw Festival in Niagara on the Lake, we watched three thoroughly enjoyable British plays in two days—a farce, a screwball comedy of manners and a psychological thriller.

Our first show was a matinee performance of the British farce “One for the Pot” written in 1959 by Ray Cooney and Tony Hilton and first performed in West-End London in 1961. The setting is the country manor of wealthy mill owner Jonathan Hardcastle, who wishes to bestow a gift of £10,000 to the son of his deceased partner, but only if that son is the sole living heir.  Hardcastle advertises in the paper in search of the heir and Billy Hickory-Wood, a simple-minded, lower-classed house painter, arrives to claim the inheritance, accompanied by his scheming companion Charlie. Troubles arise when more Hickory-Wood identical brothers (previously unknown to one another) also arrive in answer to the advertisement. Rupert Hickory-Wood is a posh upper-class gentleman while Michael Hickory-Wood is an Irish con-man and pickpocket. Hilarity ensues as Charlie and Hardcastle’s greedy butler Jugg desperately try to conceal the fact that there are multiple Hickory-Woods. This leads to mistaken identities and many rapid entrances and exits through various doors and egresses leading to the study, a hidden walk-in liquor cabinet, the garden, the ballroom, the upstairs bedrooms, and even a large chest with a fold-down lid. While all the Hickory-Wood brothers are played by the same actor, body doubles and sleight-of-hand staging make it appear as if several of them are on stage at the same time.

We were especially excited to watch this play since we greatly admired the director Chris Abraham and lead actor Peter Fernandes (playing all the Hickory-Woods) from their work at Crow’s Theatre. Unfortunately, because we attended the afternoon matinee, Hickory-Wood was played by understudy Sepehr Reybod instead of Fernandes. Despite our initial disappointment, this romp was still so much fun to watch. The timing and physicality of the entries and exits were impeccable as one Hickory-Wood left (or was shoved) through one doorway and another one appeared within seconds through another. After a while, you forget that the brothers are all played by the same actor although their characters are always easily distinguishable through their accents, vocabulary, demeanor and to a lessor extent, wardrobe.

We watched our next show that same evening. This time, it was the 2013 play “Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense” by playwrights Robert and David Goodale. The brothers took elements of the plot from the beloved 1938 P.G. Wodehouse novel “Code of the Woosters” and turned it into a play within a play. Bertie Wooster had a madcap weekend as described in that book and was convinced by his friends to reenact the events as a one-man stage play.  He explains this to the audience while breaking the proverbial fourth wall. After a few humorous minutes of trying to play the roles of both himself and his butler Jeeves (“then he said., and then I said..”), Bertie enlists Jeeves as well as his Aunt Dahlia’s butler Seppings to portray the other roles in the story.

Jeeves helpfully pushes out moveable sets and props to create the proper setting for each scene. With this background established, the three are now ready to enact the convoluted tale which involves a silver cow creamer, a lost notebook, a stolen policeman’s helmet, and the romantic relationships of Gussie Fink-Nottle and Madeline Bassett, as well as Stephanie (Stiffy) Bing and Harold Pinker. Bertie gets entangled in trying to resolve multiple conflicting pressures while fending off the aggressions from his nemesis, the retired magistrate Sir Watkyn Bassett (Madeline’s father) and Basett’s henchman Rodney Spode. In the end, as always, it is Jeeves to the rescue, coming up with the solution to all of Bertie’s problems.

What makes “J&W in Perfect Nonsense” unique from a typical Jeeves & Wooster production is the gimmick of Jeeves and Seppings playing multiple roles and the amazingly quick costume changes that they make when alternating between characters. In addition to himself, Jeeves portrays Sir Watkyn Bassett, his daughter Madeline, Gussie Fink-Nottle and Stiffy Bing while Seppings takes on the roles of Aunt Dahlia, the antique shop keeper, Sir Watkyn’s butler Butterfield, police officer Constable Oates, and the malvolent Roderick Spode. In a talkback, the actors talk about having up to 5 dressers backstage ready to help them switch costumes, with some changes taking mere seconds. One particularly impressive and recurring costume change involves the Spode character leaping into a contraption that elevates him by several feet to create an imposing figure in a trenchcoat. Actor Travis Seetoo, who plays Seppings playing Spode, spoke of how dangerous that device was and how he had injured himself multiple times. At one point in the second act, Jeeves comes on stage with the right side of his body dressed as Sir Watkyn and the left side as Madelaine as “they” carry on a conversation with each other. This is the second show that we have watched where this technique was used.

The next day, we watched our final show, the mystery-thriller Sleuth, written by Anthony Shaffer in 1970. While the play had been a great success in both London’s West End and on Broadway, wining the Tony award for Best Play, it is perhaps even more widely known for the 1972 film adaptation starring Lawrence Olivier and Michael Caine. Sleuth involves a psychological battle of wits and clash of class between the older, wealthy, upper-class mystery writer Andrew Wyle and Milo Tindle, the younger, less privileged immigrant that Andrew’s wife has taken as her lover. What starts out as a seemingly cordial meeting turns into a cat and mouse game with multiple twists and turns, and potentially dire consequences. In addition to being a fascinating play with excellent performances by the two leads, this particular production coincidentally was the directorial debut for Peter Fernandes who we missed seeing in One for the Pot, and the actor playing Milo was once again Sepehr Reybod, showing his range in an entirely different role in a totally different genre of play compared to the farce that we watched him in the day before.

Both Jeeves & Wooster and Sleuth were mounted at the Court House Theatre, a retired space forced back into use by the renovation (a.k.a. demolition and rebuilding) of the Royal George Theatre. While the set for Jeeves was relatively simple, as a reflection of the play within a play, the set for Sleuth was more elaborate. This made it all the more impressive to know that the two shows run back-to-back on consecutive days meaning the sets switch daily and sometimes even within hours between the afternoon and evening shows.

Despite the varying genres of each of the plays that we watched, from fast-paced farce to comedy of manners to tense psychological drama, they all had something in common. The theme of class distinction acts as an underlying thread that runs through all three shows. In One for the Pot, the contrast between dull-witted lower-class Billy vs. refined upper-class Rupert is apparent, as is Charlie’s fear that Billy will be looked down upon or even rejected because of his lowly status and menial job. In Jeeves & Wooster, although Jeeves is clearly the brains of the pair, Wooster still makes a point of reminding Jeeves who is the boss (or at least who he thinks is the boss). Typical of comedies of manners, the Jeeves & Wooster stories satirize and make fun of social behaviours and hypocrisies of the upper classes while providing the servants like Jeeves the gift of wit and verbal irony.  The dialogue and action within Perfect Nonsense’s outer play accentuates these concepts. Even Sleuth highlights the class differences between Andrew and Milo, causing Andrew to look down upon and underestimate Milo for being poor and an immigrant.

All three of these plays were a blast to watch and made for a great mini 3-day road trip to Niagara on the Lake.

Theatre 2026: Punch - A New Musical @ Factory Theatre

We have been following musical composer and performer Andrew Seok on Instagram since we watched and thoroughly enjoyed his show “Almost Ever After” at last year’s Toronto Fringe Festival. That show was presented “in concert” with performers singing in front of microphones and featured five interconnecting love stories inspired by movies such as Love Actually.  His latest endeavour, titled “Punch: A New Musical”, is presented in the same way but differs wildly in theme and tone.

The plot is plucked from a heartwarming real-life situation where a baby macaque monkey in a Japanese zoo was abandoned by his mother shortly after his birth in July 2025.  Given the name “Punch” by a pair of zookeepers who raised and bottle-fed him for six months, the baby macaque struggled when he was finally returned to Monkey Mountain to reintegrate with the other macaque monkeys. The other monkeys bullied and ostracized Punch, leaving him feeling alone and isolated. To provide him with some comfort and companionship, zoo officials gave Punch an orange orangutan plushie from IKEA, which he immediately took to and considered his surrogate mother. The story went viral with videos of Punch dragging around and cuddling this stuffed animal, which the public soon dubbed “Oran-Mama”. Eventually, Punch learned to socialize and was accepted by the other monkeys. Today he is thriving and relies on the stuffed animal much less than before.

Andrew Seok learned of this story through his girlfriend and was inspired to write a musical about this tale. At the start of the show, baby Punch is represented by a tiny plush monkey so that it could be cradled by its mother as she sings about not knowing how to care for her child, asking why others make it seem so easy, and then by the zookeepers as they debate what to name and how to help Punch. By the time Punch is ready to be integrated with the other monkeys, he is now portrayed by actress Lara Angela Roda, whose big, expressive eyes convey Punch’s confusion over the absence of his mother, and fear when attacked by the other monkeys. They also beam with joy and spunk, especially when interacting with the zookeeper that he thinks of as “Dad”, and once he meets a new friend in the monkey Momo, played by Belinda Corpuz who we previously saw at Soulpepper in “Narnia”. Momo befriends Punch and teaches him the ways of the macaque in terms of showing deference to the elders, grooming, and other appropriate behaviours. Akira, the leader of the monkeys and main aggressor against Punch is played by Seok himself. In the talkback, he indicated that he casts himself in his own musicals when he relates to a role and can’t find another actor who will portray it in the way that he imagines. Renowned Canadian actress and Broadway star Chilina Kennedy plays the narrator who fills in the backstory of Punch and sets up the scenes.

Particularly fitting for a concert-style musical but probably even for a fully produced show, the “costumes” of the actors playing the monkeys merely hint at their animalistic nature through the use of muted brown, beige and grey tones and the textures of the tops or sweaters being worn. Punch is dressed in an oversized grey hoodie to accentuate his relative petiteness while Akira wears a brown jacket with a fur-lined hood which makes him stand out and clearly marks him as the alpha monkey. Seok’s height which towers over the other actors helps as well. This worked out well because dressing in actual monkey suits would have changed the tone of this touching tale. This was the same sartorial choice used in the play Fifteen Dogs when depicting the various breeds of dog. By contrast, the human zookeepers are dressed in matching blue, short-sleeved, collared shirts while the narrator wears a red skirt.  These choices clearly delineate them from the monkeys.

The only other prop on stage is of course the Ikea Monkey that Punch calls “Orange Mama”. The choreography is limited but quite effective. In combat scenes where Punch is attacked, the other monkeys stand in formation and each raises an arm and forms a menacing claw with his hand. When they swipe downwards at Punch and later Momo, all synchronized by sound effects from the orchestra, the victims jerk and wince as if struck although no contact is actually made.

Once again, we were impressed by a work produced by Andrew Seok, especially when we heard during the talkback that he wrote all the songs in less than a month. Even more impressive was how short the rehearsal time was for the actors to learn their parts.  Seok is a very talented composer/lyricist and hopefully one day, he can stage a full production of his works including sets, costumes and choreography. I also wish that his shows could be held in a theatre with better sound system. Inside Factory Theatre’s Main Stage, the voices of the performers and the lyrics they were singing were often muddy and difficult to discern.

I had read in the advertisements for Punch: A New Musical that there was an “opening act” before each performance.  Arriving early to watch this, we were treated to a mini-concert by actor-musician James Daly, apparently a regular in Andrew Seok’s shows. We first encountered Daly as one of the pairs of lovers in Almost Ever After where he also played the trombone when his storyline was not being featured. In this musical, he is part of the small orchestra positioned at the back of the stage, as opposed to being in the cast. For the pre-show concert, he sang a series of torch songs that he wrote, and through banter with the audience, we learned that they were all about ex-girlfriends who broke his heart. Daly was charming and witty and his songs were both funny and touching.  This was a lovely way to settle in before the main attraction.

Theatre 2026: Primary Trust @ Crow's Theatre

Primary Trust, the last show of Crow’s Theatre’s 2025/26 season, is a touching tale of a lonely, socially awkward 38-year-old man named Kenneth, who deals with the childhood trauma of being orphaned at a young age after the death of his mother by forming a consistent routine which he has stuck to for over two decades. This involves working at an old bookstore, followed by Happy Hour Mai Tai cocktails and snacks at his favourite joint “Wally’s”, which is the last tiki bar in a fictional small-town just outside of Rochester, New York. We watch him follow his regime, signaled by a loud “ding” (like the sound made by a call bell) to mark the repetition of each day. He has a second coping method that takes a few scenes to become apparent, although the clues are there from the start.

Kenneth’s structured life is turned upside down when the owner of the bookstore decides to sell and move to Arizona for health reasons. Suddenly unemployed and cast adrift, Kenneth’s turmoil is punctuated by more frequent dings. Forced out of his comfort zone, he slowly learns to reintegrate with the real world, landing a job as a teller in the bank “Primary Trust”, the competitor to the bank that his mother used to work at, and even more slowly learning how to form friendships. It makes me wonder if “Primary Trust” has additional meaning than just the name of the bank but rather reflects Kenneth’s journey to learn to trust new people outside of his limited world.

The play is powered by the star performance by actor Durae McFarlane, who we first encountered in Crow Theatre’s 2019 production of Annie Baker’s play “The Flick”.  As Kenneth, McFarlane’s smile lights up the entire stage when he is happy and contorts in agony when he is distressed.  What makes this play special is the way that it eschews typical tropes including the stereotypical jock-bully or a forced romance. Instead, we get a quiet, heartfelt depiction of one man’s introspection as he searches for connection and belonging.

This has been the first show that we watched in a while at one of Crow’s Theatre’s flexibly configurable spaces where the stage was set up with stadium seating. While this is typical for most other theatres, it felt almost jarring at Crow’s where a thrust (3-sided) or in-the-round seating has become more of the norm.  The main set pieces include the run-down looking building representing the old bookstore, the structure with a lit-up neon sign and fringe curtain in the entrance that becomes Wally’s Tiki Bar, and a third building tucked behind that only revealed the letters “UST” from our seats which turned out to be the Primary Trust bank. Seating for the tiki bar and a teller’s counter were also pushed onto and off the stage as the scenes changed. But what caught my eye was a stoplight mounted high up on the right side of the stage. The light went from green to yellow to red as the show was about to start, possibly acting as a visual cue to the audience to take their seats.  Then throughout the show, the lights rotated between green, red and off.  It is possible that this was just used as lighting for the stage, but I became fixated on wondering if there was more meaning to the colours being used.  I was probably just overthinking things and after a while, I became so engrossed in the story that I stopped noticing.

I am finding that so many of the plays being mounted these days are emotionally taxing dramas dealing with trauma, grief, mental illness, and bleak or even horrific existences. This is reflected in the audience advisory section in the programme for each play that we watch.  The list seems to get longer and longer.  While by no means a comedy, the advisory for this play is relatively mild (mature language and themes, descriptions of childhood trauma, simulated smoking and heavy alcohol consumption). You find yourself rooting for this character, empathizing in his despair and cheering for his successes. From that respect, I thoroughly enjoyed this play but I still long for a straight-out comedy to help transport me from the depressing global state of our world today.

For each play, the lobby bar at Crow’s Theatre comes up with one or more “signature drinks” that reflect on the theme or content of show.  For Primary Trust, that drink was integral to the plot, and so, the Mai Thai was on sale. Rich ordered one and said it was a good one!