Interview: David Yazbek Talks About Dead Bodies on Broadway, Which of His Shows Are Due for Revival, and More

Dead Outlaw is David Yazbek’s sixth Broadway show as composer and lyricist, and seventh if you count Buena Vista Social Club, which he absolutely does (he is co-producer and creative consultant and was heavily involved in the show’s development).

But when Yazbek first heard the true story of Elmer McCurdy, the outlaw who found fame after death as a mummified corpse, he did not have “even the tiniest, slightest dream of ever writing musicals.” He had worked as a writer on Late Night With David Letterman, as a recording artist, and as a theme song and jingle writer. Since Yazbek’s first Broadway show, The Full Monty in 2000, he has worked steadily in musical theater, and Dead Outlaw’s story, with its big questions about life and death, stuck with him over the years.

Yazbek spoke to TheaterMania about his Tony-nominated musical, adaptations versus original musicals, his favorite score, and more.

This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Do you remember the first song you wrote for Dead Outlaw?
Erik [Della Penna, who cowrote music and lyrics] says it was probably the ballad at the very beginning, but I think I had written the riff for “Dead.” There were a couple of things about this show that I knew I wanted from the very beginning. The first image I had was someone singing a beautiful song under a starry nighttime sky and then saying the first line I’ve always had in my head, “Let’s go rob that fucking train.” Erik sent me a voice memo and it was just him and guitar and it was the entire ballad with no lyrics—I don’t think there was a bridge yet—but I wrote all the lyrics in half an hour or maybe less. I heard that music and I just started. That was the first complete song that we wrote.

This has felt like the season of the corpse. Do you think it’s a coincidence or is there a bigger reason?
It’s sort of a coincidence within a bigger reason. We’re living in tough times. And maybe somewhere there’s a subconscious understanding that you can’t avoid looking at mortality. There’s a song in our show called “There’s Something About a Mummy.” What is it that makes people just stare at a mummy? It’s been like that forever.

Your other Broadway musicals have been based on movies, but this one isn’t. Does that make a difference?
Adaptations mean that you are telling a story your own way, but it’s already a story that’s been told and many of the characters have already been written. It’s really hard to start from scratch. But I had a conception for an Elmer McCurdy musical, and I knew that it could be something that at least in my opinion was valuable as entertainment but also in other ways. And I knew that there could be a group of songs that were like the best album Erik or I had ever made. Whatever happens to the show, whatever life it has, we’re all very happy about that. I’m a certain age. I don’t have to really worry about survival as an artist, and while I don’t particularly care about legacy, I do enjoy sharing ideas with people that might get them thinking.

Do you have a favorite musical theater score that you’ve written?
I just listened to Women on the Verge again because we’re talking about maybe a revival. Some of those songs I thought, “Holy shit. I really nailed it.” I wish I could remember how I did that. Right now, it’s Dead Outlaw. There’s no filler. Every song has a hook or an emotional impact. “Crimson Thread” is one of my favorite songs I’ve ever written for anything. When I started writing Full Monty with Terrence McNally, I said at our first meeting I want the score to be like Guys and Dolls. I wasn’t saying I can write a score as good as that. I was saying I want every song to feel like I have to listen to this cast album again and again and again. So now going into every show, I say that to myself.

Do you think it’s time for a Dirty Rotten Scoundrels revival?
Yeah. I think it’s time for everything I’ve ever done to be revived. Tootsie and The Band’s Visit don’t need revivals right now. The Full Monty needs a revival because it’s very funny and there’s something about it that’s very life affirming that I would very much like to give to audiences right now. We are talking to a producer about a revival of Scoundrels. Jeffrey Lane’s book is so funny and I dug down to write really funny songs and that’s not easy. And the story of Women on the Verge is we did it in New York and we didn’t have enough time. But people embraced the cast album. And we did it in London and it was the perfect version. I was having a talk with someone at Encores! a year or two ago, but we couldn’t do it there because the band was too small. So, I’d love to see that one revived because I think we got it right.