The night before he auditioned for the national touring company of “The Outsiders,” Nolan M. White finally got to see the Broadway musical.
“I went into the audition with a fire kind of lit,” the University of Michigan musical-theater major says. “It took a little bit of the pressure off because there wasn’t the unknown of, ‘What, exactly, am I auditioning for?’”
White probably wouldn’t have gone in for the audition if his mother hadn’t pointed it out. “She sent me an Instagram about an open call and I was like, ‘Are you serious?’ And she said, ‘Yeah why not?’ So we had a free weekend just after Christmas break and it was her excuse to get to see me an extra time. I woke up at 5:30 in the morning and waited in a really long line…and here we are.”
Faculty members, White says, talked with him about putting his education on hold and taking a year to star as Ponyboy in the Tony-winning musical. “They helped me every step of the way for all of the next rounds of callbacks and how to take a weekend off during final exams.”
Technically on a leave of absence, the Nashville resident can go back to school once his contract is up, but “we’ll cross that bridge when it comes.”
Now, the actor is busy in rehearsals, waiting to begin the tour that will take him across the country.
“The best way to prepare is to do a lot of runs of the show and get it in our system,” he says. “Every time you do a full run of the show, it gets a little bit easier, a little bit more in your body. The first time we did it, it was like, ‘How are we going to do this eight times a week?’ But now that we’ve become used to it and we know how to pace ourselves, it’s a lot more fun.” Prior to “The Outsiders,” I’ve only eve done a one-weekend run of a show. This is definitely a whole new ball game.”
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To get used to the world portrayed on stage, the touring cast visited Tulsa, Oklahoma, where S.E. Hinton’s book is set.
Since White has relatives from Oklahoma City, “I’ve driven through Tulsa. I’m used to more rural stuff.” He also read the book in middle school and when friends heard it was being turned into a Broadway musical, they said he’d be great in it.
During the audition process, he also saw the film version and realized both stage and screen “Outsiders” are “incredible in their own right.”
Before the show starts, Ponyboy walks through the audience and sits on a tire, waiting for the show to begin. Like Brody Grant, who created the role, he writes in a notebook every performance. “I write whatever I need in that moment – whether it’s self-affirmations or what I’m going to try to achieve in that performance. I’m excited to find out what I’ll write.”
While younger audiences are buzzing before the show starts, White says he doesn’t try to block them out. “Because I do so much interacting with the audience it’s helpful to just realize and acknowledge that they’re there.”
When Hinton was asked how to describe Ponyboy in one word, she said, “Aware.” “And I think being aware of the audience’s presence is important,” White says.
Because it’s a grueling show – complete with fights, deaths and goodbyes – White says he and the other cast members have to cool down after a performance. “I start with a vocal cool down, then we also do a ‘de-role’ing’ process to get out of the intensity of what we went through on stage. We all have different routines. We could have a candle or something so simple that it helps you get back into Nolan land.”
The experience of starring in a Broadway show is one White welcomes with open arms. “A lot of the time, I like to treat like as if I don’t know what’s coming next. The most surprising thing about this is just how well the entire cast gets along. We just immediately clicked. It’s great having a group of people you trust and that you know have your back on the road.”
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