Timberline High Weippe, Idaho

There was a surge of interest in the Timberline Theatre Company in the academic year 1990-1991, the same year when then student Trevor Carlton was active. Carlton's depiction of then-popular rapper Vanilla Ice in a variety show in the school's theatre provoked interest in the program. In the spring of 1992, an unprecedented number of minority students auditioned for the year's spring musical, Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific. A good number of those students were also members of the school's contemporary hip-hop dance crew known as the Highsteppers. In the fall season of 1992 under the direction of Sylvia Sparling, Timberline Theatre Company began auditions for The Outsiders, a book written by S.E. Hinton and a movie made popular in the early 1980s. The number of ethnic minority students in this production increased again with several of the minority students from South Pacific returning. To the surprise of many, most of the lead roles were played by these students who previously had limited-to-no theatrical experience. The Outsiders was a slight deviation from previous TTC productions. Instead of being in the fall, The Outsiders was in the winter (February 1993). It was also a modern-day adaptation rather than being set in the same time period as the actual story. This adaptation may have been reflective of the "gang-culture" that was existent at the school at the time. For the first time however, The Outsiders production involved a somewhat tightly-choreographed and planned fight scene using martial arts for the story's big "rumble" between the Socs and the Greasers.