By Kharisma McIlwaine
S. E. Hinton’s coming-of-age novel “The Outsiders” has traveled an extraordinary path of adaptations. The story first captured young adult readers in 1967, became a beloved film classic directed by Francis Ford Coppola in 1983, and most recently evolved into a Tony-nominated Broadway musical that reimagines the timeless story of the Greasers vs. the Socs for a new generation.
Now, this critically acclaimed production is making its way to Philadelphia, where South Carolina native Tyler Jordan Wesley takes on the role of Dallas “Dally” Winston in the North American tour. Wesley spoke to the SUN about embarking on his first national tour, the power of this story, and the importance of its Tulsa, Oklahoma setting.
A night in middle school that brought Broadway and BBQ together was the catalyst for Wesley to discover his love for the world of musical theater.
“It was a night of musical theater songs, and we also did pop hits,” Wesley said. “I sang “Don’t Stop Believing” by Journey and then “Revolting” from “Matilda.” Even before that, I was active in the church. While that wasn’t necessarily musical theater, I was always musical and theatrical. Getting to middle school, finally having an outlet for it, that was when I started doing shows.”
From left: Bonale Fambrini and Tyler Jordan Wesley
Photo credit: Matthew Murphy
In high school, between his sophomore and junior year, Wesley auditioned for the South Carolina Governor’s School of Arts and Humanities, a boarding school where students were able to major in different art sub-sects. He studied acting for two years before attending Texas State University where he majored in musical theater. Before graduating, Wesley booked “The Outsiders” — his first national tour.
“At Texas State, we had a class called BFA,” Wesley said. “It was learning the inner workings of the industry and how to maintain yourself as an artist professionally. We had to go on Playbill to find auditions that were happening that we felt like we could see ourselves in. “The Outsiders” was one that made its way on my list. I was listening to the cast album playing “Run Run Brother.” I took it down to my mom. She was, like, ‘That sounds just like you — I feel like you could do this.’ I said, ‘Yeah — I really like this show.’ That was in 2023, when the show won all its Tonys. Then in 2025, my spring semester of senior year, the casting call had gone out for Ponyboy and Johnny.”
“I put my hat into the ring, not expecting anything to come back, but then they called me in for Dally,” Wesley continued. “I went up to New York three different times to audition for the show at the same time that I was doing a show for my spring semester and preparing my showcase for senior year. It all worked out, and in May, I got the call that I booked the job the night of my senior showcase.”
“It has been a huge learning curve,” Wesley said. “The most shows that I had done before this was 66 at a theater that was like a 30-minute drive from my college and I thought that was hard.”
“I think that being able to look something a little bit more challenging in the eye again is just a huge blessing,” he added. “It’s a balancing game. Our first time meeting each other as a cast, I feel like that was yesterday and now we’re eight months into our yearlong contract. The days are long, but the weeks are short. I feel like it has done a lot to give me respect for my craft and I’m able to indulge in it more.”
Although there are many variations of “The Outsiders,” Wesley was first introduced to the story through the musical.
“My first touch point with the story was the musical,” Wesley said. “I was not familiar with the book or the movie. I told my brother, ‘I’m in final callbacks for this musical called “The Outsiders.’He was, like, ‘Outsiders — like the book The Outsiders?’ I said, ‘Yeah,’ and he said that was his favorite book growing up. Then my girlfriend told me she loved the movie, and we watched the movie several times.”
“So through connections with people that were close to me, I saw how important the source material was, and I dedicated myself to reading the book several times and watched the movie several times to give audience members a taste of something that they felt like was home, but also new — an adaptation that was true to what S. E. Hinton had written,” he said.
The complexity of Dallas Winston has given Wesley room to grow with each performance, evolving alongside the character he portrays.
“Dallas Winston is a teenage boy that was forced to grow up sooner than he should have or wanted to,” he said. “He takes what he wants, but I don’t feel it’s from an evil place — but more so like, ‘If I don’t, it’s gonna get taken away from me.’ I think he is a product of what the world has shown him time and time again and he’s just learning how to navigate it as a 19-year-old. He values family, but I don’t think that his connection to family is necessarily the traditional ways that we’re taught to value family. The people that he feels he can have in his circle mean the world to him, and he doesn’t really know how to express that other than, ‘God has given you to me, you’re close to me. I’m going to do my very best to protect you, whether you like it or not. Me protecting you means you protecting me, and that’s the way the world goes.’”
“He’s a Black man — well, I can’t really even call him a man yet — but he’s in Tulsa, Oklahoma, during the Civil Rights Movement,” Wesley continued. “He understands that we’re better together, but that’s not really what he’s seen all of his life. He understands that we’re better together, but this is also a world where that’s not really true for him. I learned a bit about who Dallas Winston is every day that I do the show.”
The sordid history for Black people in Tulsa, Oklahoma — the destruction of Black Wall Street, the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, and various other events leading up to the Civil Rights Movement — adds another layer of complexity to Wesley’s portrayal of Dallas as he immerses himself in that world.
“It was amazing,” Wesley said. “My first time meeting my cast members was late July 2025.We took pictures, did a whole bunch of press out there, just kind of getting Tulsa, Oklahoma excited about us coming, because that’s where we opened — in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We got to learn [about] the culture and go to different staples of the city.”
“One of the places that we went to was Greenwood Rising, which is a museum that is dedicated to the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921,” he said. “Before then, part of my homework was learning about Black Wall Street but being in that place where they had so many artifacts and so many primary resources about what went down was so eye opening and gave me such inspiration. It was a big responsibility to kind of carry and balance, but exciting, too — to know that Black Wall Street in the 1920s had these booming Black businesses that were all just lost and torn down.”
“What did that mean for my Dally coming back 40 years later?” Wesley said.
“Did he have family here? Why try to settle down here? Why is this land important to him? Having the opportunity to learn about that and see all those things with my own eyes really helped me bring a more significant backstory for Dally in the 60s, 40 years later. I think that’s the beauty of this adaptation.”
The diversity of this cast is a major key to preserving the integrity of this story while also speaking to the current state of our world.
“My Dally is Black, but it’s not the only character that’s been looked at differently,” Wesley said. “The show has opened up in a lot of ways. Our Johnny is actually somebody who has Native American roots and AAPI roots. Our Two-Bit has AAPI roots as well. I think that this story — because of how it deals with the have and the have nots — is kind of like Shakespeare. We can take Shakespeare from the 1600s, but we find ways to bring it back today that opens up our minds and means something totally different. I think that S. E. Hinton, when she was just 15 years old, was able to capture something very similar to that: it had this one iteration in the ‘60s, then a different film iteration in the ‘80s, and now we’re back again in the 2000s. Just to be part of that legacy of using art as a magnifying glass of the world we live in today is so special.”
As a microcosm of the world in the 1960s and today, “The Outsiders” offers audiences a vast range of takeaways. At the heart of it all, Wesley hopes the experience brings about change.
“The show looks at classism, sexism, racism, homophobia, and it really challenges viewers while still being family friendly and giving audience members a great sonic experience,” Wesley said. “The music in the show is amazing. We have Justin Levine and Jamestown Revival that were able to integrate rock and roll, bluesy, soulful gospel music into this show. As we know that music in and of itself has such a rich background in rock and roll, the way that it was introduced to America. There’s so much in this show that challenges us as an audience member while also bringing us in. There’s not a one size fits all. I feel like I have the joy of being able to do the show every night and it teaches me something different every day.”
“So I hope that audience members just come in with an open heart and open mind and walk out differently from how they entered,” he said. “That’s always my goal. I just hope that you see something differently than you did when you first came in.”
Be sure to follow Tyler Jordan Wesley on IG @tylerjwestley. “The Outsiders” will be at the Academy of Music from May 26 through June 7, 2026. For more information on tickets and showtimes, visit: ensembleartsphilly.org.
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