Actor Christian Arredondo has a busy week ahead of him. In addition to understudying the lead roles of Ponyboy Curtis and his best friend Johnny Cade in the Tony Award-winning musical “The Outsiders” at the Fox Theatre through Sunday, the Walton High School graduate is also overseeing the roasting of a large turkey for assembled family in town for Thanksgiving. “I’m always in charge of the turkey,” says Arredondo. “It’s nerve-wracking as well as a labor of love. I wear many hats!”

The national tour of the 2024 Best Musical rumbled into the Fox Tuesday night, dazzling the opening night audience with its Tony-winning sound and lighting design pyrotechnics, even as a deluge outside the theatre threatened to compete with the rain falling onstage.

Arredondo’s love of theatre originated as a kid attending East Side Elementary and then blossomed onstage at Cobb County’s Walton High, where he credits the teachers overseeing the school’s drama department with encouraging him to pursue theatre as a career.

During his busy week home, the young actor is planning to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade with his family, enjoy a holiday feast with his castmates and slide into a Willy’s for his favorite tofu quesadilla. Before his debut on the Fox Theatre stage in his hometown, Arredondo spoke with Eldredge ATL about bringing S.E. Hinton’s iconic coming-of-age novel to life on stage, navigating that intense second act fight sequence and the emotional audience reaction to the show’s 11 o’clock number “Stay Gold.”

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Q: You’ve been able to play the roles of both Ponyboy and Johnny on the tour so far. And you got to debut as Johnny in Tulsa, where the novel is set, right?

A: That was insane! Bringing the show to Tulsa was crazy because the whole town sort of rolled out the red carpet for us. They were so welcoming and excited to have this story told where it started. We opened on a Wednesday and on Friday we had two performances and about three hours before the evening performance, I got the call that I would be playing Johnny. It was a Friday night audience which is always crazy energy and then, being in Tulsa, I felt like I was hit with a wall of emotion and love coming from them. It was awesome.

Q: Like “Rent” and Spring Awakening” before it, this is one of those shows that because it’s about young people, it attracts young audiences. This kind of show doesn’t happen a lot on Broadway. What’s it been like for you to see this show resonate so well with younger people?

A: As you said, these shows are few and far between but they mean so much to so many people. What’s cool about our story is everyone can sort of see themselves in not only one but multiple characters. To have the story told by such an observant narrator is a really awesome way to sort of find yourself in the story. People really resonate with the music and with the book. It’s a great way for people to just … feel. You can come to our show and you can laugh and you can cry.

Q: S.E. Hinton’s novel has been required reading in high school for generations now. Did you read it in school or did you get introduced to it when you got the job?

A: Yes, I don’t remember now which grade I was required to read “The Outsiders” in but when I got the call about this job, I immediately went to Barnes & Noble and got a copy of the book. That’s when I really dug into the book in a way I didn’t in school. I don’t know how much attention I was paying in the seventh grade! It was so exciting to look at the story from the perspectives of these people I was getting to portray.

Q: As a student at Walton High, were you active in theatre?

A: Totally. I’ve been doing school plays since I attended East Side Elementary. I think my first role was as the walrus in “Alice in Wonderland Jr.” I don’t even think it was a real role. They just added it so they could get as many kids into the show as possible. I walked on stage putting on my costume and found out that was a big no-no! I can confidently say I haven’t done that since (laughs). By the time I was in high school, my drama teachers, who were also English teachers at the school, really instilled in me the belief that maybe I could do this professionally. So I decided about halfway through high school that I would pursue this as a career in a real way. At Walton High we did “Pippin” and I played Linus in “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.” All of us in that arts program owe everything to our teachers, Joymichelle Green and Susan Griffin. They took time out of their schedules as teachers to also lead the drama department. They are the reason I’m here today, for sure.

Q: Were you able to go to the Fox Theatre a lot as a kid?

A: I did. I went to see “The Lion King” there and “Finding Neverland” and “An American in Paris.” The Fox is going to be one of the largest theatres we will have performed in so far on this tour and for it to also be my hometown, I know it’s going to be a crazy experience. When I get on stage, I sort of black out. By the time we’re bowing at the end of the show, I’m able to look out and take stock of what just happened.

Q: As the understudy for Ponyboy, the rumble sequence is a key scene in the show. There’s a combination of time-lapse, lighting, projection, choreography and fight choreography all fused together. How difficult was it to learn all of that?

A: When we rehearsed in the city, we rehearsed for five weeks. And we spent about three days alone on the rumble. We all felt very taken care of during rehearsals. You can prepare until the cows come home but you can’t prepare for actually doing it for the first time on stage — in the rain. It is physically raining on stage in that scene. It’s the coolest thing ever but doing it for the first time in the rain adds an element of making everything more real. You have to really be paying attention.

Q: For many people, one of the biggest emotional moments in the show is “Stay Gold.” You can literally hear the audience reacting. What’s it like for you to do that number and are you able to play off of those emotions?

A: What I love so much about that number specifically (and both tracks that I cover get to sing that song which is special) is it’s the quietest number in the show. So yes, you can hear people feeling everything. It’s my favorite number in the show. To be left with that moment right before the finale is a really special thing.

“The Outsiders,” book by Adam Rapp and Justin Levine with music and lyrics by Jamestown Revival (Jonathan Clay and Zach Chance) and Justin Levine, based on the novel by S.E. Hinton and the Francis Ford Coppola’s motion picture runs at the Fox Theatre through Sunday, November 30. For tickets, click here.

Above photos of “The Outsiders” North American Tour Company by Matthew Murphy