Photos: Meet the Cast of Audible Theater's DEAD OUTLAW

Audible Theater will soon present the world premiere of Dead Outlaw, with music & lyrics by Tony Award winner David Yazbek (The Band’s Visit, Tootsie) & Erik Della Penna, book by Tony Award winner Itamar Moses (The Band’s Visit), conceived by David Yazbek, and directed by Tony Award winner David Cromer (The Band’s Visit, The Sound Inside, Prayer for the French Republic).

Dead Outlaw begins previews on Wednesday, February 28 ahead of a Sunday, March 10 opening night at Audible’s Minetta Lane Theatre (18 Minetta Lane, between MacDougal & 6th Avenue – one block south of W. 3rd Street), Audible’s creative home for live performances in New York. This limited engagement runs through Sunday, April 7 only. The musical will also be recorded and released on Audible at a later date, extending its reach to millions of listeners around the world.

Dead Outlaw’s cast will feature Jeb Brown, Eddie Cooper, Andrew Durand, Dashiell Eaves, Julia Knitel, Ken Marks, Trent Saunders, and Thom Sesma.  Understudies include Emily Fink, Austin Ku, George Merrick, and Max Sangerman.

Elmer McCurdy was 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 brilliant career as a mummified side-show attraction that travelled the USA for decades. By the time this journey ended, his name had been forgotten and his desiccated body was hanging in a house-of-horrors ride at an amusement park in Southern California, spray-painted a day-glo orange. Then one day, 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. 

David Yazbek, haunted by this true story for thirty years, told his friend and bandmate Erik Della Penna the story, and as the two of them discussed why this tale of money, ambition, fame, memory and death was so compelling, they started writing songs for a stage-piece based on this odd life and these universal yet somehow very American themes. Realizing they were onto something as unique and challenging as anything they’d heard or written before, they approached Yazbek’s The Band’s Visit collaborators Itamar Moses and David Cromer, who quickly became haunted and charmed by Elmer’s story. You will too.

Photo Credit: Jennifer Broski