It was announced last week that Angelina Jolie has joined the production team bringing The Outsiders musical to Broadway. The musical, based on S.E. Hinton’s book of the same name, world premiered at the La Jolla Playhouse earlier this spring. Angelina went to see it with her youngest daughter Vivienne who will be working alongside her mother as a volunteer assistant.
As Angelina told PEOPLE:
"Viv reminds me of my mother in that she isn’t focused on being the center of attention but in being a support to other creatives. She’s very thoughtful and serious about theatre and working hard to best understand how to contribute."
Is this…the opposite of nepo baby? Another way to learn the family business? By not being on stage but starting from the bottom so as to really appreciate the artform from those behind the scenes?
In her statement accompanying the news, Angelina said that:
“I feel very fortunate to be a part of this special production. I studied at the Lee Strasberg Institute where I realized my first love, as a performer, was the theatre. I had not found a way back until now. I hope to be able to contribute while continuing to learn from this amazing team, who I have been working with since my daughter brought me to see the show at La Jolla Playhouse. I can’t begin to express how excited I am for this musical to make its Broadway debut and look forward to sharing this new adaptation of The Outsiders with the world.”
It's a perfect project for her. The Outsiders is a timeliness story – it’s coming of age, it’s youth disillusionment, no matter the generation, adolescence is complicated and confusing. The story obviously resonated with Vivienne who is in that age range now. But it must also resonate with Angelina who was once herself, working through some sh-t in those years.
Here's Angelina, with Vivienne and Pax, arriving in New York today. She and her children have already been spending a lot of time in New York because of Atelier Jolie and now, presumably, she’ll be there even more with her involvement in the musical. This is what I mentioned last month when I posted about her home search in NYC. That her new era is a New York era. She has so many reasons to be there and not in LA now.