Photos: Dead Outlaw Stars Take Opening-Night Bows on Broadway

The award-winning musical Dead Outlaw opened on Broadway at the Longacre Theatre on April 27.

Dead Outlaw has a book by Itamar Moses and score by David Yazbek and Erik Della Penna, with direction by David Cromer. It premiered earlier in 2024 as a production of Audible at the Minetta Lane Theatre and took home Best Musical honors at the Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk Awards.

Dead Outlaw is based on the true story of Elmer McCurdy, an ambitious, turn-of-the-20th-century outlaw whose death at the hands of a Western posse ended a life of failed crime and alcoholism and began a career as a mummified side-show attraction that traveled the USA for decades. His desiccated body was hanging in a house-of-horrors ride at an amusement park in Southern California, spray-painted a day-glo orange, when a grip for the Six-Million Dollar Man TV show jostled what he thought was “just a dummy” and an arm fell off, revealing a human bone and beginning a hunt for the origins of this enigma.

The Broadway company features Andrew Durand and Thom Sesma reprising their award-winning performances as Elmer McCurdy and Coroner Noguchi, alongside fellow original cast members 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, and Trent Saunders as Andy Payne.

The creative team for Dead Outlaw includes Ani Taj (choreography), Arnulfo Maldonado (scenic design), Sarah Laux (costume design), Heather Gilbert (lighting design), Kai Harada (sound design), Dean Sharenow (music supervision), Rebekah Bruce (music direction), and David Yazbek, Erik Della Penna, and Dean Sharenow (orchestrations).