How Christopher Gattelli staged a larger-than-life 'Death Becomes Her' on Broadway

The theatre veteran received two Tony Award nominations for the adaptation of the cult classic film: his first for directing and his sixth for choreographing.

When Christopher Gattelli heard his name called not once, but twice the morning the 2025 Tony Award nominations were announced, he couldn’t help but get emotional. As the director and choreographer of Death Becomes Her on Broadway, his vision led the musical to its 10 Tony nominations, putting it in a three-way tie for the most nods. And while he’s been down this road before, having earned five previous Best Choreography nominations and winning in the category for Newsies in 2012, the recognition of his direction hits harder at this point in his career.

“I've been the co-pilot to some of the best directors in the business,” Gattelli said, naming Bartlett Sher (The King & I, South Pacific), Tina Landau (The SpongeBob Squarepants Musical), Joe Mantello (Dogfight), and Michael Greif (War Paint) off the top of his head. “I've been able to watch them work firsthand, and it's just been the greatest training ground,” he says.

And the over-the-top Death Becomes Her — an adaptation of the Meryl Streep/Goldie Hawn film about frenemies who take an eternal youth potion — was what he’d been training for. “Between the comedy and the big physical production, it played to everything I love to do as a director,” he said. And it’s a good thing too, because the development process moved at a breakneck pace.

“I just did Take the Lead at Paper Mill Playhouse, and I've been working on that [musical] for 10 years,” he says with a laugh. “[With Death Becomes Her], I jumped on board, and from our first reading, it was a year and a half, and then we opened on Broadway.”

To move so quickly required not only some of the greatest minds in the biz, but a go-for-broke mentality. Universal Theatrical Group, the show’s lead producer, told Gattelli they were looking for “a big lush, opulent musical,” giving him the green light to take big swings to develop the illusions and stagecraft that bring the supernatural show to life. When key plot points demand that one leading lady takes a nasty fall down the stairs and the other gets a hole blown through her stomach with a rifle, the team certainly had to think creatively.

Gattelli credits his dual role as director/choreographer for giving him the tools necessary to unlock the stair fall, one of the show’s most buzzed-about moments. Initially, he approached it as a director, trying to figure out how to best convey it as one of the most central events in the show. But a change in perspective shifted his mindset toward movement.

“Because of my choreographer brain, I was able to look at it and go, ‘Wait, I could do that with a human body,’” he said. The result is a stunning slow-motion gymnastic tumble, executed with jaw-dropping precision by gymnast and stunt performer Warren Yang.

Once the fall was locked in, Gattelli used it to inform his approach to the show’s other staging challenges. As a fan of the 1992 film, he felt the pressure to execute on the important cinematic moments that earned it a cult following in the first place. But he didn’t want to rely on robotics or other highly complex techniques.

“We basically just used good old theatrical magic, good old-fashioned stage craft,” he said. “In a way, it leans into the comedy of the show because the audience is in on the joke. It connects with the audience more because you're seeing things that are real.”

But Gattelli knows he’s no one-man show and was quick to shout out his collaborators. He worked with two illusionists over the course of developing the show: Rob Lake for the show's world-premiere run in Chicago and Tim Clothier for the Broadway transfer. He also shouted out production props supervisor Buist Bickley for helping him nail down important gags large and small.

The team workshopped the show with a “best idea wins” mindset, allowing them to stay nimble and bounce suggestions off each other. “That’s how I like to be in the room," Gattelli said. "There's no ego, so everybody was chipping in. And so when someone had a good idea, we would run with it. It really took a village for even the smallest of quickie gags.”

It didn’t hurt that he had two powerhouse leading ladies on his side: Megan Hilty and Jennifer Simard, both Tony-nominated for Death Becomes Her. “They're both comical surgeons,” said Gattelli. “They can both figure out how to get a laugh out of anything.”

Their collaboration was another example of workshopping the show until it was exactly right. Gattelli got to witness each actress's comedic method, watching them try new line deliveries and iterations of jokes until each settled on the perfect punchline. “I loved watching both of their processes, because they’re so different, and they both work for each of them, but the end result is the same,” he said.

Gattelli, Simard, and Hilty account for four of the show’s 10 Tony nominations. The others honor the show’s book, score, scenic design, costumes, and lighting — and the cherry on top is a nod for Best Musical. Excellence across the board was always the goal. It came with Universal’s directive to go all the way — because they knew an audience was not guaranteed.

“Ticket prices are so high,” said Gattelli. “We really want to give people their money's worth. We want people to see the value in what they paid for this experience.”

Maybe most importantly, he also wants them to have fun. “The thing I'm most proud of over anything is that we get to bring this much laughter to people at this time,” he said. And even though the show opened six months ago and his daily involvement is largely behind him, Gattelli still takes every opportunity to bask in theatregoers' reactions.

“If I'm in the area, I'll still walk in for 20 minutes just to hear the audience laugh as hard as they're laughing," he said. "It means the world.”

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Production photo credit: Death Becomes Her on Broadway. (Photos by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)
Headshot credit: Christopher Gattelli. (Photo by Axel Dupeux)