Sky Lakota-Lynch (‘The Outsiders’) on performing ‘Stay Gold,’ ‘a love letter to slowing down and enjoying the simple things in life’ [Exclusive Video Interview]
“I was sleeping when the nominations happened because I just didn’t expect to get one,” confesses Sky Lakota-Lynch about the morning of the 2024 Tony Awards nominations. When he heard that he had received recognition for his performance at Johnny Cade in the new musical “The Outsiders,” he thought folks might be confusing him with fellow nominee Steven Skybell of “Cabaret” because they both have “sky” in their names, but he says that after he read the list a few dozen times to confirm that he did indeed get nominated, “I couldn’t catch my breath.” His castmates Brody Grant and Joshua Boone are nominees as well, and he thanks the Tony nominators for giving their characters “their flowers after 60 years.” Watch our exclusive video interview above.
The musical is based on the 1967 novel of the same name by S. E. Hinton, which was “the first book” Lakota-Lynch read. He says the story overall and Johnny as a character resonated with him because, “I come from a broken home,” and the book helped him see, “I don’t have to have a perfect family to be a hero or to be seen.” The actor has been at work on the show for six years and believes the opportunity to bring it to Broadway this spring was perfect timing. “I wasn’t quite ready to take on Johnny in 2019,” admits the performer, explaining, “I had to grow up and become an adult.” Since Johnny does not have many lines and only one solo song in the show, the Tony nominee turned to films including “Edward Scissorhands” and “Paris, Texas,” both in which the main character “doesn’t have a lot of lines but he has to be such a good listener,” for inspiration.
WATCH our exclusive video interview with Tony nominee Danya Taymor, ‘The Outsiders’ director
Before Broadway rehearsals for “The Outsiders,” the cast and creative team took a journey to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where the story is set and where its writer Hinton still resides in order to get a sense of the community they would be portraying. Lakota-Lynch describes that trip as “one of the best experiences of my life.” As a Native American, he says he loved “getting to see people like myself” who “have in tact their culture still,” so “getting to be around that was just mind-blowing.” Incredibly, he also got to listen to his solo “Stay Gold” in Hinton’s actual high school where she wrote the novel. “We brought back so much of that Tulsa soil and filtered it into the play,” shares the actor.
Director Danya Taymor brings the stage musical to life with a cinematic flair that also honors the rich emotional lives of the characters. Lakota-Lynch, who has collaborated with acclaimed directors such as James Lapine and Michael Greif before, says that he and Taymor share “a true collaboration” and that she has “changed the way” he acts forever. He shares that the “mirroring” exercise that she has had the cast do every day “really allows us to access that inner life” of the characters, and he expresses appreciatively, “ I hope this collaboration lasts until we both die.”
Johnny shares most scenes with either Ponyboy or Dally, and Lakota-Lynch has become very close with performers Grant and Boone, respectively. “I’ve looked up to Josh Boone most of my career,” shares the actor, saying that he is “such a calming presence on stage” and, because he is “a dad in real life,” he fits the “fatherly figure” of the show perfectly. The Tony nominee thinks the bond between Pony and Johnny is so strong because “they can sit in silence together.” As he describes, “Although Johnny has both of his parents, he might as well not because they don’t care about him,” which is why he became so close with Pony and Pony’s late parents. At the same time, “Johnny’s the number one comfort zone for Pony” in the aftermath of his parents’ deaths, so they form a new form of family with one another.
Lakota-Lynch performs one of the most beautiful and haunting songs in the show, the penultimate number “Stay Gold,” in which Johnny communicates to Ponyboy through a letter he wrote before he died. The song has been with the actor since the very beginning of the project six years ago, and when he performs it now, he thinks of his maternal grandmother. “I was there in her last moments and I saw her accept her death in front of my face and I remember the sun was setting in her room,” says the performer of how that experience ties in with the song, continuing, “I was really trying to put my Nonni into it so that people can also be closer to their loved ones that they’ve lost.” He calls the song “a love letter to slowing down and enjoying the simple things in life.”
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