Brody Grant to Appear with Urbana High School in THE OUTSIDERS

Brody Grant, the actor who originated the role of 'Ponyboy Curtis' in the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical The Outsiders, is trading the Broadway stage for a high school auditorium for one night. In a rare move for a high school theatre department, Grant will not merely be visiting Urbana High School - he will deliver a special guest performance at the conclusion of the students' opening night production of The Outsiders on November 12.

While Grant is intimately familiar with the story from his lead role on Broadway, the Urbana High School production will be a dramatic stage play rather than a musical adaptation. In addition to sharing the stage on opening night, Grant will conduct an exclusive workshop with the student cast prior to the show, offering direct feedback and teaching lessons drawn from his professional Broadway experience.

The special opening night event is a full-circle moment for the Urbana High School theatre department, which traveled to New York City in 2025 to see the original Broadway cast of The Outsiders featuring Grant. When it came time to announce the fall show, Grant appeared via a Cameo video to reveal the selection to a room full of ecstatic students.

'Our students felt the show was life-changing, and that's when I knew we wanted to do The Outsiders at some point,' said Stephen Ward, Urbana High School Theatre Director. 'What an honor and how fitting for us to have the original Ponyboy Curtis come to Urbana High School's production.'

The Outsiders is a coming-of-age story about the fierce rivalry between two teenage social groups divided by economic class during the 1960s in Tulsa, Oklahoma. S.E. Hinton began writing the original novel as a teenager, giving a remarkably honest voice to young people who were trying to find their place in a world that had already decided what they were supposed to be.

'Nearly 60 years later, those questions remain,' Ward said. 'Who am I? Where do I belong? Who sees me for who I really am? And what happens when growing up means leaving something behind? Our students navigate these questions in their own lives and will carry them into their performance of The Outsiders. Rather than surrounding these young people with elaborate scenery, effects or spectacle, we have stripped the performance down to what matters most: the actors, the relationships, and the story.'