THEATRE REVIEW: DEAD OUTLAW – A WICKEDLY FUNNY, HAUNTINGLY HUMAN MUSICAL RIDE
THE CREATORS OF THE BAND’S VISIT DELIVER A DARKLY CHARMING WESTERN THAT CELEBRATES EVEN THE MOST FORGOTTEN SOULS
The story of Elmer McCurdy—the bumbling outlaw turned sideshow mummy—sounds too bizarre to be true. But in Dead Outlaw, the new musical ghost story from the creators of The Band’s Visit, truth proves not only stranger than fiction—it’s sharper, funnier, and far more touching.
Dead Outlaw spins a mischievous but heartfelt yarn about McCurdy’s misadventures in life and long, macabre afterlife. With a rollicking score by David Yazbek and Erik Della Penna, a book by Itamar Moses, and pitch-perfect direction by David Cromer, this fast-moving, genre-bending show hits that rare sweet spot between satire and sincerity.
Andrew Durand is marvelous as Elmer, singing with plaintive soul one moment and comic bravado the next. His transformation—from aimless dreamer to failed bandit to eerie folk legend—is handled with such humanity that even when Elmer is reduced to a swinging prop on a ghost train ride, he never becomes a punchline.
The lively onstage band, led by Rebekah Bruce, weaves together country, rock, and jazz sounds that fill the theater with raw, authentic energy. The score hops across styles effortlessly, painting a vivid sonic landscape of the American West, complete with wailing lap steel and banjo.
Visually, Dead Outlaw is just as inventive. In one standout sequence, a coroner played by the scene-stealing Thom Sesma turns an autopsy into a showstopping nightclub act, crooning under violet lights—a moment of pure theatrical glee. Heather Gilbert’s lighting design is superb, shifting from eerie to ecstatic with painterly precision.
Yes, the show takes a brief detour into a secondary story that slows the momentum slightly, but it’s a small misstep in a production otherwise bursting with imagination, humor, and heart.
The ensemble of eight shape-shifts through dozens of roles with fluid ease, led by a delightfully sly Jeb Brown as the narrator. Every moment pulses with energy, even as the show gently reminds us of its deeper message: that even the most forgotten lives deserve dignity.
VERDICT: DEAD FUNNY, DEAD CLEVER, AND DEAD MOVING. DEAD OUTLAW IS A MUSICAL GEM THAT FINDS HUMANITY IN THE MOST UNLIKELY OF PLACES—AND LEAVES YOU GRINNING IN THE DARK.