Lake Forest High School students are performing S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders at Raymond Moore Auditorium, with shows remaining Friday, Oct. 16 and Saturday, Oct. 17.

The production opened Oct. 15. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. each evening, and the curtain rises at 7 p.m.

Seating is reserved. The school advises ages 13 and up because of mature content and water-based haze effects.

English teacher Sara Dreiling and history teacher Kelly MacBlane co-direct the show. It marks MacBlane's return to directing after several years away, according to The Forest Scout, the student newspaper.

Hinton's novel, set among rival teen groups in 1960s Tulsa, Oklahoma, is still taught in middle school classrooms nationwide. For the cast, that familiarity is the biggest hurdle. Most theatergoers already picture how Ponyboy Curtis should look and sound.

"People are expecting Ponyboy to perform like the Ponyboy they have seen before," junior Eloise Fairchild, who plays Cherry, told The Forest Scout in a piece published Oct. 15.

Fairchild, who plans to study acting in college, said she enjoys finding something new to bring to each role. Junior Egan Walsh, who plays Soda, said he memorizes lines backstage between scenes and again at home each night.

Much of the actors' preparation happens offstage. They study their characters' backgrounds and analyze motivations so they can stay present with scene partners once the lights come up.

The production also features notable technical elements. Senior Nico Caputo said in a September Forest Scout preview that the crew built a church set piece that rolls on and off the stage. The department hired a fight choreographer to handle the play's multiple action sequences.

Seniors Caputo and Brady Stadolnik round out the cast. Stadolnik said in the September preview that watching castmates put their own stamp on such well-known characters during rehearsal was one of the things he found compelling about the process.

Dreiling said in September that she and MacBlane were drawn to the material in part because Hinton wrote the novel as a teenager. She called the production a spectacle, with the set, soundscape, music and acting all working together.

Tickets are available through the LFHS theater department.