Angelina Jolie, Octavia Spencer, team up to give kids access to live theater

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Set us as preferred Fifty-nine years ago, a 16-year-old girl named Susie Hinton wrote a novel — about regular kids in Tulsa, Okla., divided by class — that countless other teenagers would go on to read in their own high school classrooms.In 1983, Francis Ford Coppola adapted that book into a film.

In 2023, a musical adaptation premiered at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego, then transferred to Broadway and won the Tony Award for best musical a year later.“The Outsiders” opened Wednesday in Los Angeles at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood, all bright lights and big feelings.Earlier that evening, at the Aster Hotel around the corner, Angelina Jolie and Octavia Spencer co-hosted a fundraiser event with the show’s educational initiative known as the Stay Gold Project, and City Year to increase young people’s access to live theater.

(Stay Gold has reached over 8,600 students and educators in more than 100 schools.)Jolie is one of the producers of the musical.She signed on after her daughter Vivienne, who was 14 at the time, first brought her to see it at the La Jolla Playhouse.

“I was watching it, and I was remembering my experience with this story and what it meant to me,” Jolie said, beginning to choke up.“But I was watching her, and I was learning about her, and realizing what she was seeing when she saw it, and what was moving her, and I was discovering my daughter.”Spencer — who sat beside Jolie on a plaid couch by the stage before the event — is a City Year board member.

She has participated in its mentorship program for years and advocated for education throughout her career.“My job as an actor is to listen,” Spencer said.“And I realize it applies to everything in life.

Most specifically, with the work that we do with City Year, in listening and watching our AmeriCorps members and how they...