In Los Angeles on Sunday, October 4, an event marking the Hollywood Pantages Theatre opening of the national tour of The Outsiders also launched a partnership between the show’s Stay Gold Project and the education nonprofit City Year. It gives students and teachers free access to the musical on Broadway and on the road.
The evening was hosted by Angelina Jolie, one of the show’s producers, and Octavia Spencer, who sits on the board of City Year Los Angeles.
City Year places AmeriCorps members in schools for a year as student success coaches. Its 29 local sites, which work with 250 schools across the country, will organize the student groups as the tour moves from city to city, supply a study guide and set up post-show conversations with members of the company. Its 1,500 coaches will go with the students to the theater and follow up on the story’s themes with them afterward.
The Stay Gold Project started by bringing New York City public school students to the Broadway production, then grew with the tour. In the tour’s first year, support from the SONIC Foundation and private donors paid for about 4,000 subsidized tickets for students and educators. The Crimson Lion / Lavine Family Foundation, longtime City Year supporters who prompted the new partnership, is now the project’s principal sponsor. Situation Project acts as fiscal sponsor, so donations can now fund students in every city where the show plays.
“Every young person deserves the chance to experience live theater and to see something of themselves in the stories we tell,” said producer Matthew Rego of The Araca Group. City Year’s chief executive, Jim Balfanz, said the coaches help students “build confidence, develop life skills, and stay connected to their goals.”
Based on S.E. Hinton’s novel and Francis Ford Coppola’s film, the musical won the Tony Award for Best Musical. It premiered at La Jolla Playhouse in March 2023 and has played Broadway’s Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre since April 2024. The tour opened in Tulsa in October 2025 and is booked through December 2027, with more cities to be announced.
More on the program is at the Stay Gold Project page.
