How ‘Dead Outlaw’ went from a downtown hit to a Broadway smash

The creators and cast members of the seven-time Tony Award-nominated Western musical tell how “downtown intimacy” is alive and well at the Longacre Theatre.

To appreciate the folk rock musical tale of Elmer McCurdy, the real-life antihero of Dead Outlaw on Broadway, a sense of the macabre comes in handy. So does a map.

“He traveled so much,” marveled Erik Della Penna, who co-wrote the show’s music and lyrics with David Yazbek. Dead Outlaw tells how McCurdy, an aspiring robber, was born in 1880 in Maine and killed by a posse in 1911 in Oklahoma, where he was reborn — sort of — as a roaming sideshow attraction. His corpse was eventually found in 1976 in California and buried a year later back in the Sooner State.

The musical has likewise gone on a remarkable journey. Dead Outlaw made the triumphant trek from the 391-seat Minetta Lane Theatre off Broadway, where it premiered in 2024, to the 1,091-seat Longacre Theatre on Broadway, where the production is now up for seven Tony Awards: Best Musical, Best Original Score, Best Book, Best Direction, and three acting prizes, including for Andrew Durand as McCurdy.

“It’s totally thrilling to be here in the Broadway community,” said Tony nominee Jeb Brown, who plays the Band Leader and another outlaw. “There's something electric and special about that our little show was born downtown, and [...] we're very happy we've been able to bring that downtown intimacy here.”

Thom Sesma, who plays coroner Thomas Noguchi, concurred. “We created something small and intimate and kind of creepy off Broadway, and we wanted to make sure that essence was intact when we brought it uptown,” he said. “Are there changes in texture? Yeah, but they were not as important as […] the integrity of the heart of the show.”

The show’s roots reach back even further than off Broadway. Yazbek, who first heard the wild true story of Elmer McCurdy decades ago, originally conceived Dead Outlaw as a concert. His collection of songs laid the groundwork for what would evolve into a full theatrical production.

Dead Outlaw’s vibe is raucous and rollicking, but it’s also intentionally intimate in scale to boost the bond between the audience and the story. A compact dual-purpose set (it doubles as a platform for the onstage band) and multitasking ensemble evoke the feeling of a concert-meets-folktale. This stripped-down approach makes space for the dark humor and emotional weight of McCurdy’s tale to shine through.

Naturally, the Broadway stage is larger, so elements like lighting, sound, and choreography had to be tweaked to accommodate the space. Julia Knitel, Tony-nominated for playing McCurdy’s romantic interest and other parts, called those tweaks “plusses.”

But that doesn’t mean supersizing. Ken Marks, who plays multiple roles, said the direction by David Cromer might come as a surprise. “Rather than playing bigger, he's actually having us play more intensely, smaller and more focused,” he said. “That's been a great challenge, and really fun.”

Cast member Dashiell Eaves echoed that notion. “We did what we wanted to do by keeping the show what it is in that very tricky move from [..] a gritty downtown theatre to a big, opulent Broadway theatre,” he said. “We wanted to tell the same story in the same way, and I think we pulled it off.”

For book writer Itamar Moses, “the most delightful surprise is that we even got to do this,” he said. “When we were first working on it, we weren't even quite sure what it was. We were like, ‘Is this a concert? Is it an audio musical?’” (The Off-Broadway premiere was commissioned by Audible Theater, which owns the Minetta Lane and releases all its productions as audio dramas online.)

"For it to catch on like it did, to a degree that we could move it here," Moses continued, "is just really gratifying and exciting.”

Trent Saunders, who plays a long-distance runner and other roles, seconds that sentiment. “That it got to grow and get all the way here feels just so triumphant,” he said. “I'm just so happy with everyone who keeps jumping on board our crazy bandwagon.”

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Gillian Russo contributed reporting to this story.

Photo credit: Dead Outlaw on Broadway. (Photos by Matthew Murphy)