DEAD OUTLAW Reviews- Page 3

[BorisTomashevsky]

Posted: 5/1/25 at 2:52pm

double.

Updated On: 5/1/25 at 02:52 PM

[BorisTomashevsky]

Posted: 5/1/25 at 3:24pm

Dead Outlaw now selling tickets until October 12, 2025.

[TotallyEffed]

Posted: 5/1/25 at 5:16pm

I didn't find it funny at all. In fact, it made me a bit queasy. I prefer darker theatre but for some reason this show left me totally cold. I was counting the minutes by the end. Just didn't get it.

Updated On: 5/9/25 at 05:16 PM

[CoffeeBreak]

Posted: 5/1/25 at 5:26pm

Loved it's dark, odd macabre vibe with unique storytelling.  This, OM and DBH are some of our favorites this season.

[bear88]

Posted: 5/3/25 at 5:17am

It feels to me like the creatives behind Dead Outlaw, a musical with a fine score and featuring excellent performances by the cast, made an unforced error. I understand why it happened, as they wanted a larger, dark theme to wrap around the scattered, revue-style narrative of Elmer McCurdy, alive and deceased.

But they should have spent more time exploring the dark side of the American dream instead of veering into nihilism that I thought undercut their story. The key error, ironically, is in one of its earliest and catchiest songs: Dead. It’s repeated throughout the show, and the chorus isn’t an accident. Narrative following a different song drives home the same point.

And now I am off into the land of spoilers:

 

Click Here To Toggle Spoiler Content

The chorus of ‘Dead’ features the band telling the audience that their parents are dead, their brother’s dead, and so are they. There is a list of famous people - some dead, some alive - who are mentioned. The band says they are dead too.

OK, got it. We’re all going to die someday. But what is the point of singing this to us, the audience - three different times? And what does it have to do with the strange story of Elmer McCurdy, aside from the fact that he spends half the musical as a corpse?

Not much, really. And it’s worse than that, because the show takes the time to tell us that even a ‘successful’ person, who overcame hardship and prejudice and died surrounded by his family, is still dead. We are supposed to chuckle ruefully at this, and perhaps ponder it later.

I guess this is where the show kind of lost me. Dead Outlaw has plenty to explore, and it’s very timely. Elmer grew up in a confused home, abandoned by what he thought was his family. He drinks to excess, sabotaging his life for no particular reason, creates a persona for himself that is mostly invented, is racist but acts like a victim, and turns to a life of inept crime instead of honest work. Nobody, not even his onetime sweetheart, feels like they knew him at all.

The second half of the show is a straight-up revue, as one person after another realizes there’s a way to make a buck - or a little glory, or a weird friend - off Elmer’s body. This is a dark tale and also a very American one.

But ‘Dead’ and a wry one-liner about an unrelated character keeps intruding to suggest something very different: What does it matter if we try to live a good life? We’re all just going to end up dead anyway.

Yes, we’re all going to die. But unless we’re very unlucky, we won’t end up as a carnival attraction like Elmer. The show isn’t about the inevitability of death. It’s a slice of Americana that has something to say in 2025 - but it shies away from making that its central theme. Instead, we get ‘Dead.’

Maybe it’s the times we’re living in, but I found that message off-putting. I compared it afterward, perhaps unfairly, to Assassins, a similarly dark, revue-style tale about America. That show had a point, mostly stuck to it, and the musical still retains the power to shock. Dead Outlaw gets tangled up and heads down a strange path that detracts from the story I thought it was trying to tell.

 

[Kad]

Posted: 5/3/25 at 9:00am

Dead Outlaw to me was a tale of how greed and exploitation are baked into America. The feeling that permeates this country of “I deserve more than I do and undeserving others have what I should have, that everything is unfair so what’s the harm in taking advantage of a situation?” 
The actual verses of “Dead” reveal the song isn’t m about the inevitability of life ending- it’s that the American people are already, in a way, dead (“hungry ghosts,” the lyrics say) in a dog-eat-dog, exploitive country, and even death isn’t an escape from that cycle. You can spend your life being a great leader like Lincoln or an inept criminal like McCurdy, but once you die, you lose control of your story and can become a means to an end by any number of Americans looking for their own power. (Lincoln, name checked in the song, is currently revived and up for irreverent mockery over at Oh, Mary!, for instance. Not as ghoulish as a real corpse painted red, but… Lincoln’s dead). 

[Dreamboy3]

Posted: 5/3/25 at 9:10am

bear88 said: "It feels to me like the creatives behindDead Outlaw, a musical with a fine score and featuring excellent performances by the cast, madean unforced error. I understand why it happened, as they wanted a larger, dark theme to wrap around the scattered, revue-style narrative of Elmer McCurdy, alive and deceased.

But they should have spent more time exploring the dark side of the American dream instead of veering into nihilism that I thought undercut their story. The key error, ironically, is in one of its earliest and catchiest songs: Dead. It’s repeated throughout the show, and the chorus isn’t an accident. Narrative following a different song drives home the same point.

 
And now I am off into the land of spoilers:

 

Click Here To Toggle Spoiler Content

The chorus of ‘Dead’features the band tellingthe audience that their parents are dead, their brother’s dead, and so are they. There is a list of famous people - some dead, some alive - who are mentioned. The band says they are dead too.

OK, got it. We’re all going to die someday. But what is the point of singing this to us, the audience - three different times? And what does it have to do with the strange story of Elmer McCurdy, aside from the fact that he spends half the musical as a corpse?

Not much, really. And it’s worse than that, because the show takes the time to tell us that even a ‘successful’ person, who overcame hardship and prejudice and died surrounded by his family, is still dead. We are supposed to chuckle ruefully at this, and perhaps ponder it later.

I guess this is where the show kind of lost me.Dead Outlawhas plenty to explore, and it’s very timely. Elmer grew up in a confused home, abandoned by what he thought was his family. He drinks to excess, sabotaging his life for no particular reason, creates a persona for himself that is mostly invented, is racist but acts like a victim, and turns to a life of inept crime instead of honest work. Nobody, not even his onetime sweetheart, feels like they knew him at all.

The second half of the show is a straight-up revue, as one person after another realizes there’s a way to make a buck - or a little glory, or a weird friend - off Elmer’s body. This is a dark tale andalso a very American one.

But ‘Dead’ and a wry one-liner about an unrelated character keeps intruding to suggest something very different: What does it matter if we try to live a good life? We’re all just going to end up dead anyway.

Yes, we’re all going to die. But unless we’re very unlucky, we won’t end up as a carnival attraction like Elmer. The show isn’t about the inevitability of death. It’s a slice of Americana that has something to say in 2025 - but it shies away from making that its central theme. Instead, we get ‘Dead.’

Maybe it’s the times we’re living in, but I found that message off-putting. I compared it afterward, perhaps unfairly, toAssassins, a similarly dark, revue-style tale about America. That show had a point, mostly stuck to it, and the musical still retains the power to shock.Dead Outlawgets tangled up and heads down a strange path that detracts from the story I thought it was trying to tell.

"

Very interesting. I guess there is some tension between the theme of we will all be dead and the underbelly of the American dream. I did very much appreciate the story telling on the latter. I loved that Elmer — whether the result of being given a bum deal in his childhood or because he was a bad seed (the show posits both) — was a complete failure at everything he did and had much more success as a corpse than he did during his lifetime.  

I also loved the dark humor. I don’t think this is a show for everyone. But I was talking with a friend and we thought that this may be a musical for people who don’t like musicals. 

[ACL2006]

Posted: 5/3/25 at 11:14am

not sure exactly when they started, but they're doing in-person rush now. $40. they were selling them today for both shows.

[bear88]

Posted: 5/3/25 at 1:04pm

Kad said: "Dead Outlaw to me was a tale of how greed and exploitation are baked into America. The feeling that permeates this country of “I deserve more than I do and undeserving others have what I should have, that everything is unfair so what’s the harm in taking advantage of a situation?”
The actual verses of “Dead” reveal the song isn’t m about the inevitability of life ending- it’s that the American people are already, in a way, dead(“hungry ghosts,” the lyrics say) in a dog-eat-dog, exploitive country, and even death isn’t an escape from that cycle.You can spend your life being a great leader like Lincoln or an inept criminal like McCurdy, but once you die, you lose control of your story and can become a means to an end by any number of Americans looking for their own power. (Lincoln, name checked in the song,is currently revivedand up for irreverent mockery over at Oh, Mary!, for instance. Not as ghoulish as a real corpse painted red, but… Lincoln’s dead)."

In Lincoln’s case, in the decades following his assassination, he was turned into an increasingly adonyne figure, largely inoffensive, for the political purposes of others. It was a less extreme version of how Martin Luther King Jr. has been turned - for political reasons - into a man who said one sentence and nothing else. Who lives, who dies, who tells your story, indeed.

Thanks, Kad, for your thoughtful defense of the show’s use of its main song. It didn’t work for me, in part because I think it detracted from doing a better job telling what I thought was its more powerful and interesting story. The ingredients are all there but the show never figures out a way to tie them together. Or perhaps I just wasn’t in the mood to hear it. 

Dreamboy3, I think you’re right that Dead Outlaw might appeal to people who might dislike the sentimentality that is part of most musicals. Even Operation Mincemeat’s raucous, wild comedy gives way to an emotional tribute - and its featured song is a tearjerker. Dead Outlaw’s creators, theater veterans whose career has been built on adaptations that touch the heart, have no time for that in this musical. I respect them for sticking to their guns and writing what is a kind of punk rock show.

Updated On: 5/3/25 at 01:04 PM

[Kad]

Posted: 5/3/25 at 2:09pm

I concede that I'm doing the work on my end to figure out, intellectually, why Dead Outlaw really works for me- work that the creators may or may not have successfully done on their own. (I also concede I tend to connect to shows on an intellectual level first and emotional level second- I really love things that give me something to turn over in my mind over and over).  I think it's good for us to suss out in detail why things work or don't work for us.

[bear88]

Posted: 5/3/25 at 2:52pm

Kad said: "I concede that I'm doing the work on my end to figure out, intellectually, why Dead Outlaw really works for me- work that the creators may or may not have successfully done on their own. (I also concede I tend to connect to shows on an intellectual level first and emotional level second- I really love things that give me something to turn over in my mind over and over). I think it's good for us to suss out in detail why things work or don't work for us."

I was really looking forward to Dead Outlaw and was surprised to be disappointed by it. I do think the show’s admirers, like you and many critics, are filling in the gaps that the creatives didn’t succeed in doing. I liked the idea of the show, and what I thought I would be getting, more than the actual musical I watched. But maybe that’s just me, responding to what I saw as the show’s missteps in a way that’s just unique to me. I couldn’t shake the Assassins comparison, but contrasting any new musical to Sondheim probably isn’t fair.

I still liked a lot of Dead Outlaw, and listening to the partial cast recording yesterday reminded me of a lot of what I enjoyed.

[Kad]

Posted: 5/3/25 at 3:03pm

Assassins is definitely an interesting comparison, in terms of dark Americana subject matter. But fwiw, I think Assassins is only a half-successful show- Sondheim's score is unimpeachable brilliance, but Weidman's book is really hit or miss for me- some of those vignettes just simply do not work for me and I have never seen them fully work even with excellent cast and direction. Dead Outlaw's more thinly sketched episodic structure I thought was at least more in sync and integrated with the score, whereas in Assassins it feels like you have to get through the non-musical scenes to get to the music- the good stuff. That being said, I think "Another National Anthem" through the book depository scene to the finale is pretty much as great as musical theatre can get.

Updated On: 5/3/25 at 03:03 PM

[Owen22]

Posted: 5/3/25 at 3:58pm

"Dead Outlaw" will be the ONLY musical from this season that will be remembered and constantly revived over the next 50 or 60 years.  It has the intellectual attraction of a Sondheim musical (I'm sure if Broadway World was around for a good portion of Early Sondheim these same "confused" posters would treat the master's gems the same as some on here do "Dead Outlaw") and the kind of score that will eventually be embraced by theatre kids and piano men alike. .

[chrishuyen]

Posted: 5/3/25 at 11:24pm

Kad said: "I concede that I'm doing the work on my end to figure out, intellectually, why Dead Outlaw really works for me- work that the creators may or may not have successfully done on their own. (I also concede I tend to connect to shows on an intellectual level first and emotional level second- I really love things that give me something to turn over in my mind over and over). I think it's good for us to suss out in detail why things work or don't work for us."

I find this discussion interesting because in the larger picture I can see how all the themes of capitalism/death/legacy/etc appear in the show, but at least in the two times that I was watching the show, I never felt like those themes were as deliberately woven in as those in something like Assassins or even other shows on Broadway right now.  It really felt like Yazbek and co. were kind of like "here's a cool story we feel like more people should know about" and just wrote a musical about that without necessarily delving into those themes in particular, but perhaps that's what drew them to the story originally, and I assume it's that same sort of thing that the big fans of the show saw in it as well.

[CoffeeBreak]

Posted: 5/3/25 at 11:27pm

It's great because the ideas and themes are not force fed or preachy.  Instead skillful.  A relief from many shows these days who spell it out.

[PipingHotPiccolo]

Posted: 5/4/25 at 12:02am

chrishuyen said: 
I find this discussion interesting because in the larger picture I can see how all the themes of capitalism/death/legacy/etc appear in the show, but at least in the two times that I was watching the show, I never felt like those themes were as deliberately woven in as those insomething like Assassins or even other shows on Broadway right now. It really felt like Yazbek and co. were kind of like "here's a cool story we feel like more people should know about" and just wrote a musical about that without necessarily delving into those themes in particular"

This is exactly my impression--its just a wild story they wrote music about. Why does it have to be deeper than that? ALSO its a story that is so quintessentially American it inevitably has something to say about American capitalism, tale-telling, historical expansion, etc. etc. 

it works, is what matters.

[chrishuyen]

Posted: 5/4/25 at 1:33am

PipingHotPiccolo said: "chrishuyen said:
I find this discussion interesting because in the larger picture I can see how all the themes of capitalism/death/legacy/etc appear in the show, but at least in the two times that I was watching the show, I never felt like those themes were as deliberately woven in as those insomething like Assassins or even other shows on Broadway right now. It really felt like Yazbek and co. were kind of like "here's a cool story we feel like more people should know about" and just wrote a musical about that without necessarily delving into those themes in particular"

This is exactly my impression--its just a wild story they wrote music about. Why does it have to be deeper than that? ALSO its a story that is so quintessentially American it inevitably has something to say about American capitalism, tale-telling, historical expansion, etc. etc.

it works, is what matters."

My problem is though that I'm not sure it does work for me. Obviously it does for a lot of people and I'm not trying to take away from that but while I found it fairly diverting as light entertainment the first time I saw it, I thought it seemed rambling and aimless the second time. Which is why I'm surprised people seem to think this is a show that will be remembered for its themes down the line. Sure, it touches on a lot of parts of American culture and history but I don't think it really made me think or consider anything in a different light, and outside of a great score and a curiosity of a story I found it somewhat forgettable. Like I said though, it's cool to see that others found more to dive into on this but I just didn't personally feel the same. 

[MezzA101]

Posted: 5/4/25 at 7:58am

'Dead Outlaw' Broadway Composers Talk Tony-Nominated New Musical

https://www.billboard.com/music/pop/dead-outlaw-broadway-composers-yazbek-della-penna-interview-1235961575/

[steven22]

Posted: 5/6/25 at 7:01am

I originally had no interest in seeing this. I just started listening to the first part of the cast recording. I’m really enjoying it. How does the recording compare to the live performance? 

[Ensemble1698878795]

Posted: 5/6/25 at 7:06am

PipingHotPiccolo said: "chrishuyen said:
I find this discussion interesting because in the larger picture I can see how all the themes of capitalism/death/legacy/etc appear in the show, but at least in the two times that I was watching the show, I never felt like those themes were as deliberately woven in as those insomething like Assassins or even other shows on Broadway right now. It really felt like Yazbek and co. were kind of like "here's a cool story we feel like more people should know about" and just wrote a musical about that without necessarily delving into those themes in particular"

This is exactly my impression--its just a wild story they wrote music about. Why does it have to be deeper than that? ALSO its a story that is so quintessentially American it inevitably has something to say about American capitalism, tale-telling, historical expansion, etc. etc.

it works, is what matters."

It doesn’t have to be deep, but it should be entertaining. Half the musical drags because they tell us more than show us anything worth getting invested in. Cool concept, not a thrilling journey for us. 

[HeyMrMusic]

Posted: 5/6/25 at 11:06am

I'd say the clarity on the recording is much better than hearing the songs live. A lot of the rock songs are loud in the theatre, making it hard to understand the lyrics. But it's otherwise a good representation.

Updated On: 5/6/25 at 11:06 AM

[bear88]

Posted: 5/6/25 at 11:51am

HeyMrMusic said: "I'd say the clarity on the recording is much better than hearing the songs live. A lot of the rock songs are loud in the theatre, making it hard to understand the lyrics. But it's otherwise a good representation."

Depends on the song. Andrew Durand was easily understandable in the theater, at least to me, even on his loudest, angriest rock song (including one not on this first part of the cast recording). The ballads and quieter songs sound the same.

I agree that it’s a good representation and reminded me of how much I enjoyed a lot of the score. I expected to like Ballad, Normal, and A Stranger - all quieter songs, on the recording. Something from Nothing, which I enjoyed in the show, is a standout on the recording.

 

[Jmuep2]

Posted: 5/8/25 at 11:44am

Has anybody gotten tickets for this through TDF? Curious why they're putting folks. 

[Sutton Ross]

Posted: 5/9/25 at 4:52pm

What a gorgeous email. I love this show so much and I think I will give them my business again this weekend. Bravo!

[Fordham2015]

Posted: 5/9/25 at 5:07pm

Statement from the show: "Regretfully, the Broadway production of Dead Outlaw has decided to cancel Monday’s planned appearance at the Library of Congress upon learning of the termination of Dr. Carla Hayden, the Librarian of Congress. Dr. Hayden has been a fierce advocate for preserving America’s cultural memory and a great champion of the Broadway community."

https://playbill.com/article/dead-outlaw-cancels-library-of-congress-performance-in-response-to-trumps-firing-of-librarian-of-congress