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Exclusive Interview: Sutton James Kaylor of 'The Outsiders' · The BSB Podcast

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If there's one show on Broadway that encourages audiences to stay gold,
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it's the Tony Award winning the outsiders.
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And today we're talking about the actor bringing Sodapop to life,
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Sutton James Kaylor Thank you so much for being here.
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Of course. Thank you so much for having me.
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So I just want begin by saying congratulations on having your Broadway debut with
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the Outsiders. What an incredible show to kinda start off with.
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~ how would you say that it's been so far for you since your debut?
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It's been a dream come true, first and foremost.
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~ I mean, I've wanted my whole life to do this and be in a show that moves people
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in the way that this piece does.
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~ but actually being able to experience and see
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how fans are affected. I mean,
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I'm I there are a couple moments in the show where I am not necessarily seen,
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at least lit to the audience, and so I can kind of peek out and see ~
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How people are ~ experiencing the show.
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And ~ a lot of I I see a lot of people mouthing ~ the words
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of like great expectations and like literally every word in the front
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row while wearing a pony boy costume.
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And like just the to have a piece that ~ allows fans to connect
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in that particular way and and be so emotionally captivated by the story that we're
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telling is ~
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It's everything to me as an artist,
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like to be able to d do that and recycle that story every single day and
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~ tell it in the most authentic way possible.
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~ it's it's a dream. Yeah.
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I will say this that when we went and saw we originally saw this ~ a year or so ago,
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and then we saw it ~ when it toured,
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and I actually got to see you just a few weeks ago.
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And when I first went into the show,
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I was not expecting to be so like emotionally rocked to my core as I was.
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so much so that ~ it's actually one of the songs that you sing,
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Sodapop's Letter, that I ended
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yeah.
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up just being like a complete mess the first time I saw it.
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That the lady in front of me turned around and was like,
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Are you okay? Like like I was asking,
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because I was having such an emotional reaction.
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So I I've totally
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Understand what you're talking about.
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It's so cool to see people so emotionally connected to a show such as this one.
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Yeah,
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totally. Yeah, exactly. I'm also have the privilege of singing some
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of my favorite songs in the whole show.
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and yeah, it's it's a it's such a gift to be able to bring this character
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to life and ~ he's such a unique role in terms of,
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you know, the character archetypes and he plays such a pivotal role in
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~ how the story is told I think and if I can if I can do my
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job successfully every day, ~
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then then hopefully the audience can be moved,
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~ even though I'm I'm not necessarily like,
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you know, the pony boy or like the the big like lead.
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Like I think soda still has ~ a pivotal role just in a in a different way.
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~ yeah.
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I
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would argue that Sodapop and ~ Daryl have the two like the emotional crux
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of the show falls on the t both of your shoulders.
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Totally. Yes.
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Yeah. Yeah. Which is a a responsibility,
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you know? ~ and like I feel like like ninety percent of
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my time backstage and on stage is with the actor that plays Darryl because
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we do everything together. It's like if I'm not in a scene,
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he's likely not in a scene and ~ vice versa.
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But ~ yeah, it's i those two characters for sure.
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~ once, you know, Johnny and Pony are ~ running away from murdering Bob,
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it's like we are the parts that of that are left of the family.
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And so, ~ there are moments, you know,
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picking each other up to then be able to care for Pony Boy.
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~ and throwing in the towel specifically is a huge moment for Soda.
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~ where he's like really
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Such a big one.
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stepping up to the plate, ~ and taking on the responsibility.
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~
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that that Daryl has you know, to to pick up Daryl when he needs it.
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~ so yeah, that's that's a lot of fun to do every night.
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As fun as that could be. Yeah.
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For sure. I'm sure it's
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an actor that is fun to be able to play a part such as that.
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Exactly, yeah. Yeah.
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So going back for you, we you began your kind of your acting career with Peter Pan,
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is that correct as a child?
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That
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is correct, yes.
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So what was it about that experience that made you fall in love with performing?
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Yeah, ~ I so from a young age I was always surrounded by theater.
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Dance actually particularly because my sister was ~ a competitive dancer through
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her whole childhood and I was always the brother that was there on his phone
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or on his my little iPod touch,
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like playing Angry Birds. ~ but ~ I you know,
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was just around it all the time.
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And then she got involved in our drama productions at
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at our elementary school. She was a couple years older than me.
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~ so
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Okay.
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I was then the kid who was always in the corner at rehearsals who wasn't
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old enough to be in the plays,
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but I was just around it all the time.
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And so then by the time it was ~ I was old enough to be in the plays,
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~ I already had, you know, a sense of famili familiarity in that room
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and like with those directors and whatever.
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So I felt relatively comfortable taking a stab at it myself.
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And yeah, I I just fell in love with the art form.
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I I just love k telling stories and building characters that are outside
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of my own shoes and ~ being able to just like exist in whatever circumstances
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are set for me. I think that's kind of the appealing part for me of being an actor.
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So yeah.
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And then when you went from, you know,
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you were in college at a Michigan University,
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University of Michigan, I should say.
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Yeah.
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~
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but as you were in college, you transitioned really quickly to being with
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the outsiders. In fact, you were kind of balancing both of those things
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at the same time. What
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Yeah.
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was that transition kind of like emotionally and professionally for you?
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my goodness, that's a good question.
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It was really crazy. ~ I essentially had two weeks from when I heard
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I was playing soda pop to move to New York,
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to drop all my classes, to then find housing in New York City and start rehearsals.
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I had two weeks from the day I found out to figure out my whole life.
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and it was crazy. Yeah,
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No pressure, right?
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no pressure for
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real. ~ but yeah, they were such a welcoming
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cast and creative team. So like once I was in rehearsals,
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it was like, okay, it's go time.
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Like I feel confident being led by these people.
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And Danya Tamor and Miranda and Autumn are directing team,
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~ just like really allowing me to ~ feel like I had it under me,
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you know, instead of it all like creeping up,
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which was just so crazy. But anyway,
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in that's in terms of ~ tackling the material initially in the room.
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But ~
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Sure.
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yeah, just like it was weird. It was crazy.
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Like I have to drop
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these classes that a week ago I was stressing about this midterm that I have
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to take in a month and now it's like,
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Okay, I am no longer in school.
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So but then
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Ciao.
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I ended up ta I I had to ~ complete a few other requirements in order
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to still graduate. So I did some online classes while I was in the show.
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~
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Incredible. That that I mean the dedication to both the art and
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the the the learning, that was that's incredible for you to do.
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Yeah. Thank
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you. I appreciate it. Yeah, it was definitely not easy.
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Not easy.
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So when you have a character such as Sodapop,
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who's such a beloved character,
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~ from a novel that many people probably grew up on reading,
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did you kind of like go back to the book be when you were taking the role
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or or how did you kind of change the way you approached this character that
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so many people know?
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Totally.
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Yeah, that's a great question.
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~ the great thing about this story is there's so many different possibilities
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and ways to take this character.
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Whether I lean more into the way S.E.
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Hinton wrote it wrote it in the book initially,
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or taking some liberties or or taking things from the outsiders movie
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and that interpretation of it or
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how it's just crafted in the musical and how the actor Jason Schmidt,
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who played it before me, portrayed it and kind of taking all these little things
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from different ~ I would say the book is probably number one,
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just because it's it's so easy to see the way he's described,
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more so than just like turning on a movie and like analyzing it.
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~ so having like the words to communicate his character was was very easy
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for me in that way.
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But also like being able to take things that are said in the musical.
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Like when I'm in initially introduced,
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it's Soda Soda smiles all the time,
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even when he probably shouldn't.
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And my director, Dania, kept s sh she said use that of like
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the forefront of building your character because if that's how you're introduced,
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you gotta hold you gotta stay to that.
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So find opportunities to smile and live in that smile.
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~
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And kind of the rest will figure itself out if if you live if you're living honestly
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with the character. ~ so that is kind of what I would say is it's accumulation
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of of all these different idioms,
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but also myself and like trying to fuse as much of myself into the character
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as I can. Yeah.
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I will say that I think that one of the things when you talk about like
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how he is like all smiles, it almost it makes the emotional part when
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it finally hits you even just more like it's like it's another level
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of just like the emotionality of like,
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he's not smiling in this moment.
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Do you know what I mean? Like and that hits even harder.
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Totally. Yeah.
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Totally, yes, yeah.
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So you mentioned that you do infuse some of yourself in there.
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So what parts do you feel like you personally kind of connect with when
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it comes to soda pop?
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that's a good question. These are great questions.
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I am a very optimistic,
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happy person. I tend to smile a lot,
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and they always say that's why they cast me was because I literally
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was just a replica of what they were looking for in the character.
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So they were like, okay, just be you.
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~ so that has been helpful, but it's also challenging to be like,
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okay, but I'm also trying to act and like put on and give in
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to these circumstances while trying to.
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honor myself as much. Like so so that's interesting.
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~ but yeah I think I'm I tend to like try to look on the bright side
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of things and ~ I'm very in touch with my emotions.
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I think Soda Pop is, you know,
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he might not be the most book smart or street smart person,
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but he is very in emotionally intelligent.
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And I think I can say the same about myself.
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Yeah.
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I would I would agree. He is probably what I would say is like
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the emotional bridge between Pony Boy and Daryl when it comes to the show.
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Totally. Yeah.
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So when it comes to building that relationship with Noah and Dan,
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like how do how do you approach that to build that chemistry ~ with your stage
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partners?
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Yeah. It helps because I'm around these guys all the time.
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So like it was relatively easy.
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Well, especially for Noah, because the two of us came into the show together.
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So we were in rehearsals all the time.
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Whereas Dan was playing Daryl on Broadway be f well we were in rehearsals.
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So like he couldn't, you know,
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be in those rehearsal spaces. So Wes Williams,
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who covers Daryl and Soda and Bob and Paul,
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I know crazy.
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He was learning
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So many.
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Daryl
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when we were learning our tracks.
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So he was kind of the ~ the guy who we were rehearsing it all with.
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So we were able to kind of, you know,
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obviously Noah and I had each other,
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but we also had somebody who was learning Daryl at the time.
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And so being able to kind of see how the characters my gosh,
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Dania also took us through these few exercises.
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Calling mirroring exercises. Essentially,
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like she would give us a prompt.
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~ and I remember there was one particular prompt that Noah and I did.
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We were working on the bedroom scene this day of rehearsal,
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and a a large part of that scene is when we talk about our parents who passed away.
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~ and so we ~ the prompt was you're walking home from your
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parents' funeral, and so
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Essentially one partner, like if I were to raise my hand,
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Noah would then raise his hand and we'd mirror each other.
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~ but it gets a lot more complex when you start a to add these components
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of that's the prompt that we got.
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And then she would start a song that was like,
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You already just want a ball. And then by the end,
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we were like holding each other's heads and like like just embracing each other with
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like tears in our eyes. And so things like that
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that we can now allow for that to come out naturally as we talk about
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the text or like having experienced that me and Noah as people.
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~ of course we were in a we were playing our characters in that part,
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but as people we ha we've had that experience that we can then,
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Sure.
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you know, embed into that scene when we talk about our parents every night.
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So yeah.
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You know, and that's something too about the show is that it does infuse
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a lot of those heavy themes. You know,
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we're talking about violence, grief,
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family, but also with a lot of humor.
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Specifically, I would say with your character,
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there's a lot of that humor building and stuff like that.
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~
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Totally.
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so how do you kind of strike that balance when it comes to the different sides
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of Soda Pop?
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Yeah, I think a lot of it comedy is always if there's anything I learned in college,
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it's just as an actor, comedy is just playing the truth and
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the authenticity of whatever the circumstances.
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And so for Soda, he tends to try to use comedy as a tactic
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to de escalate situations when they get out of hand,
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particular bet particularly between Pony Boy and Daryl,
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as he's the bridge between the two.
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so for instance, when the two of them are screaming at each other after Pony gets
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home too late one night, ~ then that that's a perfect that's an example where
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so does using comedy almost that entire scene to try to de-escalate it
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and like be like, guys, it's not that big of deal.
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~ but yeah, and then obviously later in this in the show,
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once two of our best friends have passed away,
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how do I, you know
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continue to use comedy to try to cheer up Pony and cheer up Daryl.
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~ I think it's a it just once again about just like honoring.
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I think it's like finding the balance of like when to show that heartbreak
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and when to say, okay, I'm heartbroken right now,
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but maybe if I make this joke it'll make Pony smile and maybe that's what
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he needs to be himself again. Like it's it's about finding
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the ways I can use tactics to to use comedy,
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I suppose, instead of just being like,
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let's try to make this as funny as possible to the audience,
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but shh, it's like, how can
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Right.
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I make this as funny enough for Pony Boy to crack a smile so that I know he's okay?
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It's like those sorts of things I think.
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Hopefully that answers your question.
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No.
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And I think that one of the scenes that always sticks out to me is the
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the one of the final scenes when you're sitting at the kitchen table
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and you're try that's very like subtly trying to like what a brother would
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do to like, are like almost like you're poking,
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like, are you okay? And I'm trying to just see if you're okay.
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And obviously, you know, we we know Pony Boy's not.
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and that always sticks with me with like the level of like the different levels
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of humor that comes with Soto Pop.
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It's just like it depends on the situation.
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And he's almost an expert in how he applies it,
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or like how you apply it in that situation.
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Totally. Yeah. Yeah, you're spot on.
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So for a show such as The Outsiders,
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it is an incredibly physical show.
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This is such a this is one of the coolest choreographed shows I think I've ever seen
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on Broadway. what do you feel like is the coolest part or like what what part
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of this are you like the most proud of when it comes to like
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the physical performing of The Outsiders?
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The rumble. I mean, it's it's
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It's so cool.
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just like so artistic,
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but
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Like it it's it's how do we how do we communicate violence to
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an audience without punching each other across the face legitimately?
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Okay, obviously we can do stage fights,
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but just having people fighting on stage for that long and then it's the
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end of the number and that's cool,
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they won or lost. But like the way the Cooperman brothers and Danya kind
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of created this like almost dream ish sequence to represent violence.
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I think it's I I think it is so powerful.
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I think it's one of the coolest things I've ever seen on a stage before.
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And now that I get to do it every night,
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like it's it's really, really cool.
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And it's really rewarding. ~ just that scene particularly and hearing
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how it moves people and how some people I I see I I
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s so does fight. I'm in the front for most of it.
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And I can there are a few
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parts where like my head is up and I can just like quickly s I and
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not that I'm trying to do this,
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but I can quickly see how it's affecting people.
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And some people are like, some people find it slightly s like they don't even know
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how to react. So maybe they're smiling a little bit.
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Some people like are don't even want to look because it's so intense.
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~ and I think that was more what they were going for ~ in creating it
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is like it's so
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uncomfortable to watch these boys like destroying each other physically.
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~ and so just telling that story and and allowing for audiences to react
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in whatever way they do is is powerful.
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Yeah.
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That is the one scene I have to say that I mean there's many scenes,
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but that's the one scene that always sticks out because it is so it's so wild
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to see performed mul across multiple times with multiple different people.
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And, you know, my business partner,
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he is an actor where I'm I'm just a psychologist,
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you know, and he ~ the first time we saw it in New York,
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he said that one is insane.
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Like it one one second off from being choreographed,
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like you all have to be timed perfectly,
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right? You have to
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Make sure it's all going off and it's just so impressive to see across the stage.
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Like like I don't think any show can can kind of top that or match that energy.
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And you're right, sometimes it is just super impressive to just watch it
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and take it in. And other times you're just like,
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it's but so intense I can't look at what's going on.
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Exactly, yeah. Yeah.
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so if you were to go back and tell that,
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you know, the younger self who was playing in Peter Pan and he could see you now,
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what do you think you'd say to him?
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I mean, w for starters I'd be like,
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hey, it's all gonna work out. I mean,
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That's important.
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I don't know if at that
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point I knew that I was like really gonna do this as a career.
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~
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Okay.
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but I would prepare myself because this is so hard.
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Like just being an actor in today's world and like being a number amongst thousands
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and thousands of people that are all trying to do the same thing and like
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I went to an all boys high school that like I was the only one who really took
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at least the theatrical arts seriously.
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~ and that was so hard. Like being constantly told that I was like weird
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for doing it, or like, you know,
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an outsider, no pun intended. ~
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We love that.
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that like it's it's all gonna be okay.
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And like I hard work and and
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discipline and showing up for myself.
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~ I think this is this is the advice I give to people nowadays when they ask.
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But like showing up every day and like trying to get slightly better every
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day is gonna far outweigh the natural talent that the person to your right
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or left was born with. Like if you put your head down and you're just
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go doing your work, it's always gonna pay off.
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And I think
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There were moments where I think I've I've been able to do that successfully over
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a long period of time, but definitely like I found moments where I like,
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you know, people's words affected me a certain way or ~ I
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I as a result of that I let my discipline slip or whatever.
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~ and like not to compare myself to other artists around me 'cause I'm
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my own unique artist and that's why I got chosen for this show and this role.
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~ and yeah, just to
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embrace my full self and not try to be anything I'm not for people that aren't even
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in my life anymore now that I'm out of high school and college,
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you know. ~ yeah.
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I
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I love that you said that about like showing up for yourself.
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That's so hard sometimes for people,
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but truly that's the best thing anyone can do is just continue to show
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up for yourself even when in the when it's difficult or it's it's a tough day.
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Continue showing up and and being there for yourself.
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Totally. Those
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are usually the days that you grow the most,
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yeah. Yeah.
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For sure. So one final question then for you is just what are
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you hoping audiences take away from this production of The Outsiders?
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A lot. I hope people
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Ha ha.
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take away first off, like
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The f the feeling that I felt when I first watched The Rumble for the first time,
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like I want every single audience member to walk out of that theater having
21:14
l seen that spectacle and enjoy that.
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But emotionally speaking, I think there are so many amazing,
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beautiful themes throughout the show.
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With the death of Johnny and Dally in the show,
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I think both have a lot of lessons to take away.
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But I think particularly like stay gold.
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Like it's it really is like just be I don't know.
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I think
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I I l I I th
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I think primarily if if people can leave the theater and hold on
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to their little brothers and little sisters a little bit tighter
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and their friends and like really enjoy spending their time on this earth with them,
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I think that is the best thing that people can leave theater with.
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And I think
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Regardless of whether or not this show I think there are so many shows
22:13
on Broadway that you can leave feeling that way with that don't even talk about
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familial relationships. Whereas ours is primarily familial and,
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you know, the friend group or the amoeba as a as a like the greasers.
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~ I think it puts it even more on under the spotlight.
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~ and people can see themselves in these characters and
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~ yeah, if it can make people treat each other any more kindly,
22:44
then that's that's a win for us.
22:47
It's so true. ~
22:48
Yeah.
22:49
but thank you so much for being here,
22:50
so and for talking about the outsiders.
22:52
It's been such a pleasure chatting with you.
22:53
Of course. Thank you so much, Brian.
22:55
It's been a pleasure talking to you.
22:57
The outsiders is currently playing at the Bernard B Jacobs Theater in NYC,
23:01
so get your tickets now and we'll see you at the show.