Everything you need to know about 'Dead Outlaw' on Broadway
The folk-rock musical comes to the Longacre Theatre after winning top honors at numerous theatre awards ceremonies for its 2024 Off-Broadway premiere.
Step right up and see Dead Outlaw on Broadway! After premiering off Broadway in 2024 and winning four Best Musical prizes among numerous other accolades, the most delightfully weird musical this side of the Wild West is getting a bigger stage.
The celebrated creative team behind the Tony Award-winning musical The Band's Visit has reunited to musicalize the true story of Elmer McCurdy, a man more famous in death than life. After dying young, the former train robber — that is, his preserved corpse — got a second life as a sideshow attraction. McCurdy's unbelievable tale is set to folk-rock music played by an onstage band, making Dead Outlaw a unique combination of a radio play, an Americana concert, and a simply thrilling musical.
Before visiting the Longacre Theatre to see Dead Outlaw, learn more about the show below. Come one, come all (well, all ages 14 and up)!
Get Dead Outlaw tickets now.
What is Dead Outlaw about?
Dead Outlaw tells a true story that's larger than life — and death. The title character is Elmer McCurdy, a train robber who died in a shootout in 1911 at age 31. His death, however, was just the beginning of his infamy.
No family members claimed his corpse, so an undertaker preserved and displayed it to visitors for a fee. Thus began decades of people parading the "dead outlaw" across the country as a carnival attraction, movie prop, museum piece, and more.
Where is Dead Outlaw playing?
Dead Outlaw is at the Longacre Theatre, located at 220 W. 48th St. between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. Originally part of a three-theatre complex, the venue opened in 1927. Plays and musicals that have recently run at the 1,077-seat theatre include Swept Away, Lempicka, Leopoldstadt, Macbeth, and The Prom.
How long is Dead Outlaw?
Dead Outlaw runs 100 minutes with no intermission. This is on the shorter end of a typical Broadway musical length, which generally ranges from 90 minutes to 3 hours.
This running time is based on the Off-Broadway world premiere of Dead Outlaw and is subject to change slightly for the Broadway run.
What days is Dead Outlaw playing?
Dead Outlaw will play Tuesday through Sunday, with two performances on Wednesdays and Saturdays and no performances on Mondays.
This schedule is subject to one-off changes, particularly during early performances and around holidays. For the most up-to-date weekly schedule, please visit the Dead Outlaw page.
When did Dead Outlaw premiere?
Dead Outlaw had its world premiere off Broadway from February to April 2024. The Broadway premiere is in April 2025, with performances starting on the 12th ahead of an official opening on the 27th.
Who wrote Dead Outlaw?
Dead Outlaw features a script by Itamar Moses and songs by David Yazbek (who originally conceived of the show) and Erik Della Penna. Moses and Yazbek, along with Dead Outlaw director David Cromer, are known for their award-winning collaboration on the 10-time Tony Award-winning Best Musical The Band's Visit.
Moses is also a playwright represented numerous times off Broadway. Yazbek has worked on 10 Broadway productions as a composer, lyricist, and/or music consultant; other shows he wrote songs for include Tootsie, The Full Monty, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. Della Penna is a folk musician who has also composed children's musicals, film scores, and songs for himself and other artists.
Dead Outlaw characters
Most of the actors in Dead Outlaw, besides the one in the title role, play multiple people who rotated in and out of Elmer McCurdy's life, plus storytellers regaling the audience with Elmer's tale. Here are the major characters in Dead Outlaw.
- Elmer McCurdy: The "dead outlaw" of the title. McCurdy was a train robber whose body was put on display for paying gawkers cross-country after he died.
- Band Leader: An otherwise unnamed character who narrates McCurdy's story and performs many of the show's songs live with an onstage band.
- Helen: Elmer's adoptive mother.
- George: Elmer's adoptive father, who dies when Elmer is fairly young.
- Maggie: A girl with whom Elmer has a brief romance while living in Iola, Kansas. The same actress plays Helen and Maggie.
- Louis: Elmer's bumbling coworker at a plumbing business in Kansas.
- Jarrett: The leader of the Jarrett gang, a group of robber brothers. He meets Elmer in jail and teaches him the tools of the trade. He's played by the same actor as the Band Leader.
- Charles Patterson: A man who poses, along with his brother James, as Elmer's brothers in order to claim his corpse and use it in their traveling carnival. The same actor plays him and Louis.
- Coroner Johnson: A coroner in Pawhuska County, Oklahoma, who is the first to show off Elmer's corpse for money when no family comes forth to claim it.
- Coroner Noguchi: A coroner in Los Angeles who oversees the final autopsy and burial of Elmer's body in 1976.
- Andy Payne: The winner of a cross-country footrace, which is accompanied by a traveling sideshow at which Elmer's body is being displayed.
Who is in the cast of Dead Outlaw on Broadway?
The entire Dead Outlaw Broadway cast reprises their roles from the show's 2024 world premiere off Broadway. They include Andrew Durand as Elmer McCurdy, Jeb Brown as Band Leader/Jarrett, Eddie Cooper as Coroner Johnson, Dashiell Eaves as Louis/Charles Patterson, Julia Knitel as Helen/Maggie, Ken Marks as George, Trent Saunders as Andy Payne, and Thom Sesma as Coroner Noguchi. Emily Fink and Max Sangerman are understudies.
Durand and Sesma won Outer Critics Circle Awards for their Off-Broadway performances in Dead Outlaw.
Dead Outlaw songs
Fittingly for a show with a Wild West flair, Dead Outlaw has a folk, rock, country, and Americana-infused score. An onstage band performs the rollicking music — with the characters often joining in to sing — and a band leader narrates Elmer McCurdy's story in between.
The below song list is from the Off-Broadway production and is subject to change for the Broadway run. This article will be updated accordingly.
- "Opening"
- "Dead"
- "Normal"
- "Killed a Man in Maine"
- "Dead (Reprise)"
- "Nobody Knows Your Name"
- "Blowin' It Up"
- "Indian Train"
- "Leave Me Be"
- "A Stranger"
- "Something From Nothing"
- "Our Dear Brother"
- "Somethin Bout a Mummy"
- "Andy Payne"
- "Somethin Bout a Mummy (Reprise)"
- "Millicent's Song"
- "Nobody Knows Your Name (Reprise)"
- "Up to the Stars"
- "Our Dear Brother (Reprise)"
- "Crimson Thread"
What awards has Dead Outlaw won?
Dead Outlaw was one of the most awarded productions of the 2023-24 New York theatre season, winning top honors from four different awards organizations alongside multiple other prizes.
- Drama Desk Awards: Dead Outlaw won for Outstanding Musical, Book of a Musical, and Lyrics and was up for seven additional awards.
- Outer Critics Circle Awards: The show won Outstanding New Off-Broadway Musical along with performance awards for Andrew Durand and Thom Sesma. It received six additional nominations.
- New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards: Dead Outlaw was awarded Best Musical, beating out all other Broadway and Off-Broadway competitors.
- Off-Broadway Alliance Awards: Dead Outlaw won for Best New Musical.
- Other awards: Dead Outlaw was nominated for Outstanding Musical among other honors at the Lucille Lortel and Drama League Awards.
The Broadway transfer will not be eligible for most of these awards again, as the production is largely unchanged. However, Dead Outlaw will be in the running for 2025 Tony Awards.
Major productions of Dead Outlaw
Thus far, the only major productions of Dead Outlaw are its 2024 Off-Broadway world premiere at the Minetta Lane Theatre and its 2025 Broadway premiere at the Longacre Theatre. Its early success, however, makes it likely to have future productions nationally and globally.
Additionally, the 2024 production was presented by Audible Theater, which will release the full audio of Dead Outlaw later this year on its online platform.
Fun facts about Dead Outlaw
Learn more facts about the musical and the man who inspired it, from the marquee-worthy to drop-dead bizarre.
- Despite having the title role, the actor playing Elmer McCurdy has no lines in the second half of the show. At that point, he's acting as McCurdy's corpse!
- McCurdy has a history in showbiz: His corpse was featured in the 1967 film She Freak and was used in promotional content for the 1933 film Narcotic!
- Post-death, McCurdy was given multiple nicknames when his body was on display: "The Bandit Who Wouldn't Give Up," "The Outlaw Who Would Never Be Captured Alive," "The Mystery Man of Many Aliases," "The Oklahoma Outlaw," and "The Embalmed Bandit."
- When McCurdy's body was finally buried 66 years after he died, concrete was poured over his casket so no one could dig him up.
- The Off-Broadway production featured a burial scene in which actual dirt was poured into a hole in the stage.
- Dead Outlaw is the first Audible Theater production to transfer to Broadway since the branch's inception in 2018.
Get tickets to Dead Outlaw on Broadway
Dead Outlaw has a unique Western flair, a wild tale at its core, and plenty of imagination (giving a captivating lead performance as a corpse is no easy feat). It's a wholly original musical to die for.
Get Dead Outlaw tickets now.
Photo credit: Dead Outlaw off Broadway. (Photos by Matthew Murphy)
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