Dead Outlaw
Off-Broadway Promotional Poster
Music	David Yazbek Erik Della Penna
Lyrics	David Yazbek Erik Della Penna
Book	Itamar Moses
Basis	Inspired by the life ofElmer McCurdy
Premiere	March 10, 2024 (2024-03-10):Minetta Lane Theatre
Productions	2024 Off-Broadway 2025 Broadway

Dead Outlaw is amusical with music and lyrics byDavid Yazbek andErik Della Penna and a book byItamar Moses. It is inspired by the life ofElmer McCurdy. It premiered in 2024 at theMinetta Lane Theatre. The musical was originally conceived by Yazbek.^[1] It opened on Broadway at theLongacre Theatre on April 27, 2025.^[2]

An omniscient Bandleader begins to tell the story ofElmer McCurdy, "the Dead Outlaw". In the early 1900s, McCurdy lazes around a campfire with a group of fellow outlaws ("Ballad"). Hearing a distant train, he alerts the others as they prepare to rob it. In 1976, a Teamsters member working on an episode ofThe Six Million Dollar Man atThe Pike amusement zone on the Long Beach pier discovers a prop body hanging in a ride is a real human corpse, triggering a media frenzy as the police try to determine the body's identity ("Dead").

The story flashes back to Elmer's childhood in late 1800s Maine, where he imagines himself as a Wild West outlaw, living with his parents and his "aunt". Elmer's father dies suddenly, and his mother reveals he is actually his "aunt's" son, and he is sent away to live with her. Elmer runs away and sets out to build a new life. He drinks heavily and often starts bar fights. He arrives in Iola, Kansas, where he meets Maggie Johnson and takes a job as a plumber under William Root, having learned basic plumbing skills in his youth. He and Maggie fall in love and for a few years it looks like he has a normal life ahead of him ("Normal"). Eventually, Elmer grows restless and picks a fight with his co-worker Louis, claiming that he is a murderer ("Killed a Man in Maine"). Though the Bandleader points out this was likely not true, Louis tells Root, who fires Elmer, and Elmer leaves town without saying goodbye to Maggie ("Dead" (reprise)).

Elmer continues to travel finding different jobs, including a stint in a coal mine and at one point joining the Army Engineer Corps. At the end of his service he and a fellow soldier scheme to rob a nearby house and get rich ("Nobody Knows Your Name"), but they are caught red-handed with their tools before they can do so. While in jail, he meets a robber named Walter Jarrett who upon learning of Elmer's background as an engineer invites him to join his family of robbers, using his training with explosives to help them crack open safes. Elmer successfully convinces the judge his tools were actually for a piece of army equipment and joins the Jarretts. However, despite trying to recall his training on nitroglycerin usage under GeneralDouglas MacArthur ("Blowin' It Up") he repeatedly fails to crack any safes. The Jarretts give him one last chance when Elmer proposes robbing a train in Oklahoma delivering money to the Osage tribe, but during the attempt discover they found the wrong train ("Indian Train"). The Jarretts abandon Elmer for his uselessness. The law finally tracks down Elmer, and he is killed in a standoff with an Oklahoma sheriff, just as he had once dreamed. As he dies, he expresses relief that his indignities in life are finally over ("Leave Me Be").

Elmer's body is taken to Coroner Joseph L. Johnson's morgue, where Johnson performs an autopsy. He preserves the body with arsenic while placing expensive ads in newspapers throughout the country, seeking a family member to come claim the body and reimburse him for the expenses. Maggie comes and mourns Elmer ("A Stranger"), but Johnson cannot release the body to her as she is not family. Visitors start showing up at the morgue to see the body with increasingly fantastical tales of his identity and exploits. Johnson and his assistant decide they can recoup some costs by charging to see the body. They prop the body up in an open coffin and put a rifle in his hands. ("Something From Nothing"). Five years later, two men arrive at the morgue, claiming to be Elmer's brothers ("Our Dear Brother") and seeking to have the body released to them. Johnson sees through the ruse but accepts a bribe, and the Patterson brothers take the body for their circus. Elmer's body then sees a variety of "jobs" in sideshows ("Somethin' 'Bout a Mummy") until he ends up in a wax museum comparing criminals and presidents. In one of those "jobs," the mummy is used in the 1928Trans-America Footrace as a sideshow to entertain onlookers aside from the race itself. The eventual winner of the race, a Cherokee man namedAndy Payne, tells his own story of saving his family's farm by running the race and winning the prize money. The organizer of the race and sideshow,C. C. Pyle, offers to be Payne's agent, but when Payne sees Elmer's body on display at the sideshow he takes "the mummy's good advice," declining the offer and going home ("Andy Payne").

Elmer then ends up in the hands of a filmmaker,Dwain Esper, who uses him as a prop in an assortment of movies. ("Somethin' 'Bout a Mummy" (reprise)) He keeps the mummy in his home, where his daughter Millicent is briefly shocked but then comes to treat Elmer as a friend and confidant throughout her childhood ("Millicent's Song"). Elmer briefly revives to the audience to express his frustration over how his body continues to decay over the years, but when visitors start trying to stick items in his mouth the owners wire his jaw shut, silencing him again ("Nobody Knows Your Name" (reprise)). After many more years of being a sideshow or stuffed in a closet, Elmer's mummy is painted day-glo red and hanged from a noose as a prop in a ride at The Pike.^[3] The LA County coronerThomas Noguchi, who has performed autopsies on such celebrities asNatalie Wood,Sharon Tate, andMarilyn Monroe ("Up to the Stars"), receives the body after its discovery. He successfully identifies Elmer but, lacking any next of kin, the city decides to cremate his remains. However, citizens of Pawhuska, Oklahoma arrive, offering to claim Elmer as their own so they may give him a proper burial ("Our Dear Brother" (reprise)). Noguchi, weary of Elmer continuing to be exploited, agrees on the condition that his service be a somber one, and he be buried in six feet of concrete so his body may never be touched again. They oblige and Elmer is finally laid to rest ("Crimson Thread"). The band reminds the audience that they too will one day die, and to think about how we are treated after our deaths ("Dead" (Finale)).

Previews forDead Outlaw began on February 28, 2024, at theMinetta Lane Theatre.^[4] The world premiere ofDead Outlaw opened days later on March 10. The production concluded its run on April 14.^[5] The production featured direction byDavid Cromer with orchestrations and arrangements by Della Penna, Yazbek, and Dean Sharenow, scenic design by Arnulfo Maldonado, costume design by Sarah Laux, lighting design by Heather Gilbert, and sound design by Kai Harada and Josh Millican.^[5] The production received elevenDrama Desk Award nominations, winning three, includingOutstanding Musical,Outstanding Book of a Musical, andOutstanding Lyrics.^[6] After previously announcing an October 2025 release date,Audible, who commissioned and produced the musical, announced that their recording of the show's off-Broadway engagement would be released on July 17, 2025, with a traditional cast recording to be released at a later date.^[7]

On December 19, 2024, it was announced that the musical would transfer to theLongacre Theatre.^[8] The show began previews on April 12, 2025 and opened on April 27 with the original off-Broadway cast reprising their roles.^[9] The production's final performance was on June 29, 2025.^[10]

• "Ballad" - Elmer
• "Dead" - Bandleader
• "Normal" - Bandleader, Elmer, and Maggie
• "Killed a Man in Maine" - Elmer
• "Dead" (reprise) - Bandleader
• "Nobody Knows Your Name" - Elmer and Army Friend
• "Blowin' It Up" - MacArthur and Elmer
• "Indian Train" - Elmer and Ensemble
• "Leave Me Be" - Elmer
• "A Stranger" - Maggie
• "Something From Nothing" - Johnson and Ensemble
• "Our Dear Brother" - Johnson, James, and Charles
• "Somethin' 'Bout a Mummy" - James, Charles, Louis, and Ensemble
• "Andy Payne" - Andy and Ensemble
• "Somethin' 'Bout a Mummy" (reprise) - Louis and Dwain
• "Millicent's Song" - Millicent
• "Nobody Knows Your Name" (reprise) - Elmer and Bandleader
• "Up to the Stars" - Noguchi
• "Our Dear Brother" (reprise) - Oklahoma Delegation
• "Crimson Thread" - Bandleader, Elmer, and Ensemble
• "Dead" (Finale) - Bandleader

• Official website
• ​Dead Outlaw​ at theInternet Off-Broadway Database (archived)

• 2024 musicals
• Musicals based on real people
• Musicals inspired by real-life events
• Musicals set in the 20th century
• Musicals set in the United States

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