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[0:00] Jeff Malone: Welcome to Half Hour with Jeff and Richie, the podcast where we take a deeper dive into the latest shows we see, sharing our insights and opinions on the performances, storyline, and everything in between.

[0:11] Richie Grasso: In today's episode, we'll be discussing the new off-Broadway musical DEAD OUTLAW.

[0:15] Jeff Malone: Whether you're unable to catch the show in person or you're looking to expand your thoughts after seeing it, this episode is for you.

[0:20] Richie Grasso: And as always, we want to give you a heads up that this episode will contain spoilers.

[0:25] Jeff Malone: So if you're ready to dive into this production, stick around with us.

[0:29] Jeff Malone: I'm Jeff.

[0:30] Richie Grasso: And I'm Richie.

[0:30] Jeff Malone: We're thrilled to be your hosts for this episode.

[0:32] Richie Grasso: So without further ado, let's start the conversation about DEAD OUTLAW.

[0:40] Jeff Malone: Half hour.

[0:45] Jeff Malone: Welcome everyone to a new episode of Half Hour with Jeff and Richie.

[0:49] Richie Grasso: Today we're talking about the new off-Broadway musical DEAD OUTLAW.

[0:52] Jeff Malone: In Dead Outlaw, Elmer McCurdy's lackluster career as an outlaw and subsequent post-mortem journey as a mummified carnival exhibit across the USA came to a startling revelation when his body, mistaken for a prop on the Six Million Dollar Man set, had lost an arm exposing human bone.

[1:09] Richie Grasso: This macabre discovery ignited a search for his history.

[1:13] Jeff Malone: Decades later, this story gripped David Yazbek, compelling him and Erik Della Penna to create songs for the first stage production of McCurdy's bizarre tale, encapsulating themes of greed, notoriety, and mortality.

[1:25] Richie Grasso: DEAD OUTLAW features a book by Tony Award winner Itamar Moses.

[1:34] Jeff Malone: I can't believe I just read a description of a show like that. The whole thing is so wild to music.

[1:42] Richie Grasso: It is so, it really is so wild.

[1:44] Jeff Malone: So with that, let's start with our bold statement about the piece and see how that unfolds into this conversation.

[1:50] Richie Grasso: Alright, bold statement. Stories that are wild and bizarre make for amazing theater, which is clearly evident in this extremely well-written and well-produced musical downtown called DEAD OUTLAW.

[2:06] Jeff Malone: Bold statement here is this is easily going to be in my top 10, maybe top 10 favorite musicals right now because there's just something so captivating about this story and the way that they told this story that was so intriguing.

[2:24] Richie Grasso: And let's just say that this was theater. It was theater as it should be, with the right people casting the right roles, orchestra, the movement of stage and storytelling, and we weren't overloaded with a 75-piece cast, which is like cool, and we have a ton of cast, but we didn't need it.

[2:42] Jeff Malone: We had the same ensemble playing multiple roles, we didn't have a million different projections. We didn't, it was the orchestra was seen and present and the character in and of itself. And you're telling a true story.

[2:51] Richie Grasso: And there are so many true stories out there that are fascinating. And that's not a dig towards any fiction. There's awesome fiction tales to tell too. But when you have a true story like this, this could have been told as a documentary, this could have been told as a straight play. To tell it as a musical makes it even more fascinating to me.

[3:12] Jeff Malone: I can't wait to dive into this part because I was just blown away by the whole thing. So with that, what do you feel like really stood out for you in how this story was told on the stage?

[3:23] Richie Grasso: What stood out to me was that everybody is called actor. So like everyone, no one's named the character's name. Oh, Elmer McCurdy. No one's named Elmer McCurdy in the cast. Yet someone plays him, but everybody plays many different people from different times from the 70s when the body was discovered all the way back to the 1800s.

[3:45] Jeff Malone: So I loved that theatrical, like, we're a troupe and we're gonna tell the story as a group and a troupe. The orchestra being very present musically and physically, seeing them tell the story. I loved the narrator being a singer in the orchestra, but also a character and him going back and forth, speaking into a mic on a mic stand, almost as if we were sitting in like a bar or cabin somewhere hearing the story, put us in the element nice.

[4:12] Richie Grasso: All of the, I could keep going. I mean, the costumes were wonderful. I thought there were some wonderful performances. We'll get to, but especially seeing Andrew Durant playing this character and having him stand still for so long at the end in the casket. There's so many things, and it's inventive and it's creative, and this fascinating story could have been told much more boringly, if that makes sense. And instead, it wasn't, and it was really captivating to me.

[4:39] Jeff Malone: I 100% agree with how this story is kind of almost pushing boundaries in a way because actually, I don't know if you really noticed, but many members of the band were singing throughout this piece. So it wasn't just the lead singer who's also a character in the show, but other members of this band were also singing along. They were doing background vocals for certain things. There's only one female in the whole cast, other than the other members of the band. So that was really interesting as well.

[5:14] Richie Grasso: What I kind of feel like with this story, I was a little okay. When you and I both read this piece, we were like, we need to see this musical, especially because David Yazbek's name was attached to it, and we loved The Band's Visit, and there were so many cool things that he's done before. But I was like, how are they going to do this as a musical? How are they going to take this plot that really has no way of kind of validating or looking in history for all of this information? And it's really cool how they kind of went back and forth on what they were like. This could have happened. Did it happen? Did it not happen? Who knows? We don't know.

[5:53] Jeff Malone: But it's like it's this whole thing around death and how it was treated in this whole piece that I thought was, I don't know, it was comedy at times, it was sad at times. You didn't know who you were supposed to feel bad for, and it just like worked. And the pacing of the music worked, these train ride scenes and traveling around the country with a fast pace up tempo. We had the ballads, everything fit in nicely.

[6:19] Richie Grasso: And it's interesting because sometimes I don't, to me when it comes to bluegrass, rock, or folk, any of those styles, and they're all different, but in a way they're kind of similar too. I am very hit or miss. And I find that like when I hear some folk scores like Hadestown or like, I'm like, okay, I don't know. I know this might be an unpopular opinion. I'm not the biggest fan of the Hadestown score. That music doesn't really do it for me. But I love Once, I love this score. Sometimes I really like the instruments being seen, but I know we see the instruments in Hadestown too, but I like the music sometimes when it fits. And I don't know why sometimes they do and sometimes I don't. I guess it just depends on what you're doing.

[7:00] Jeff Malone: But I think that's because you have these really well-seasoned creators in this piece that know how to take a sound like the bluegrass sound that you're talking about and also add the musical theater elements that really get your whistle kind of turning, I think.

[7:18] Richie Grasso: And we had those breakdown moments. We had it in those kind of numbers that they don't know if they exist. So great, let's bring the theater in there to those moments. And that was done so smart. And there's these concert-style feel moments where the actors get up on the mic and tell a story. There's these theater moments. Nothing seems jarring or confusing. I'm with them the whole step of the way.

[7:44] Jeff Malone: And we moved the orchestra, so we had bare stage at times. They shifted off, they came on, and I love how actors and crew are moving them, physically moving them. That was cool. The costumes were wonderful. And then another thing that stood out to me, and I said this about another show, I'm trying to remember how I think it was The Connector, where we talked about the ensemble, not once again, no offense to the chorus boy, chorus girl look of Broadway, where all the ensemble usually looks the same in terms of body type. This was a diversity of race, a diversity of gender, a diversity of body type. It was so nice to see an ensemble like that because then it made sense when there were townspeople burying the body.

Made sense when there were people in different time periods, who were news reporters, who were fellow gangsters and outlaws, and cops, and who were sheriffs, and everyone played because that's what a town would have been different. I just loved the diversity elements of that. I really did.

[8:40] Jeff Malone: Right. I feel like with casting, we're kind of starting to see some of these things, especially off-Broadway, where we're actually casting for what the characters should be, not for what's going to kind of give it that Broadway feel, for lack of a better saying, maybe.

[8:59] Richie Grasso: Yeah. But like bravo to this cast, because I feel like that's where the whole, like what do we call it in theater? Like the players come in. Like, we're gonna come and we're gonna put this whole show on and we're gonna play like multiple different characters throughout the piece, right? So it just, that was cool to me.

[9:18] Jeff Malone: Totally. And I will always be a fan of a narrator because sometimes I know it doesn't always work, and actually really doesn't work sometimes. We've seen some things where I'm like, oh my gosh, they didn't need this narrative. But when you have a complicated, bizarre story like this, because let's face it, I don't know how well I would have followed this if I didn't have a narrator sometimes telling me where we work, because this was a very complicated story of this man's end of his life.

[9:46] Richie Grasso: But that's when you have a team of people that understand what they need to do. Because, like you're saying, this is not something where you needed to trust your audience to try to figure it out. This was kind of a little bit more of, hey, let's narrate this to kind of help people understand the story better. And we're not gonna over-narrate it, we're going to bring it in at the right times. But sometimes things do need to be spelled out a little bit for people.

[10:13] Jeff Malone: And yeah, and I will also say, you know, I went down a rabbit hole on this plot. I was doing a lot of research on this. I'm fascinated by this story. There is, I don't think the show, you know, we will get into a little bit more of some specific choices of direction, design, and character, but I don't think this show went into extreme sadness. They instead kept this light sense of camp. The coroner then becoming this Judy Garland with the mic chord singer. Like that's so camp.

[10:45] Richie Grasso: That was like your favorite moment.

[10:47] Jeff Malone: Definitely one of them. I mean, the whole, with the bomb blowing up and then not blowing up a million different times and then kicking him out of the brothers' group. The cement pouring at the end at a moment that would have been really somber was also borderline comedic because this sloppy sounding cement is being poured into the hole. But it was also his ghost was looking over, and we were solidifying that the body was being laid to rest officially.

[11:11] Richie Grasso: And I will say, like, in a lot of faiths, in most faiths, you're usually supposed to put a body at peace when they die, right? We know this from a lot of different faiths, and it's actually not, it's actually frowned upon when a body is not laid to rest properly in due time. And so this man, it took years and years and years and years. And the fact that no one during this American history, years and years and years in different states and different places, no one treated the body with respect. So there is this overlying sense of sadness. I felt throughout the piece that this was really sad.

[11:49] Jeff Malone: But here's what I'm trying to say. We didn't need that to be spelled out. We didn't need a this is sad song. We didn't need that because I felt it already. If anything, I think we needed the camp comedy to remind us of how absurd this is to remind us that it's also a kind of important story to tell, but it's silly and bizarre. But I kept throughout, I felt glimpses of sadness because I felt so much for this man not being laid to rest for as long as he was having no family to lay him to rest. I did feel, did you feel that at all?

[12:24] Richie Grasso: A little bit. I felt sad for him. Of course, you're supposed to feel sad sometimes. But I think there's this line of going back and forth in am I supposed to feel sad? Because he was actually not a really good person.

[12:37] Jeff Malone: Right.

[12:38] Richie Grasso: He was a bandit in some ways, he was a robber, he was always in trouble. He was a con artist and changing his name. So there was a lot of bad things around him. And then the whole idea of karma and how karma kind of gets you after that is like he didn't have anyone in his life after he didn't have any family, and moving into that, he is just there because he's a mummy, so it kind of gets your ideas churning a little bit of like, are you still there in the spirit with your body? We don't know what happens when we die. So we have this whole idea kind of like that he's watching everything that's going on, which I also thought was an interesting choice to do it that way. To later, when they are finally burying him, he's watching it happen, and he's like, This is what happened to me.

[13:28] Jeff Malone: And where the comedy comes in there, it's like, oh, do you watch what happens to your body after you die? You know, it's just interesting. And like we have this whole recurring theme of, you know, we're all dead, we're alive right now, but we're all dead eventually, which I think is also great. And it just brings it back full circle here in how this team really sat down, they were inspired by a story, they elevated the story and turned it into something, and then they put that on the stage.

[13:58] Jeff Malone: This wasn't trying to fit the cookie cutter mold that we see so many people try to do in telling a story. You know, we've seen a few things. Like I'll take an example of off Broadway. We saw White Rose. They didn't really know how to elevate that story that has already been told so many times. This one was elevated. And there was haunting moments too, not just sadness, but haunting when he's left in the casket and then ironic says, and he was left in the closet for like what 10 years and silence. And we sat in silence for maybe a minute, which is a very long time in theater to sit in silence, just watching him in complete darkness until that big door opened with the people up. I think in this closet back here, you know, and oh, just a body sitting there.

And then but think about that. That's something that someone smartly thought about like, hey, let's breathe life into what the mummy was feeling at that time. But not only that, then this mummy is hanging in an amusement ride, and they have another line with like how many thousands of people drove past a dead, real dead body that was painted red until an arm fell off, and someone in the right place at the right time realized there was a bone. And if no one that person wasn't in there in the 70s, would that body still today have been hanging there? Who knows? I don't know, but decomposition and I don't know enough about the science of that, but it lasted that long, you know, and no one noticed.

And what and what sadness that that poor man's soul wasn't laid to rest until such later, you know. But and now let's take it to the next level. Now it's a musical. His life is his life is a musical. So but I think then when you kind of channel start slart channeling into the direction and some design and some character performance, you're realizing it was smartly designed, the costumes were designed nicely. And David directed this nice. He's a 20 award-winning director. He knew how to move this story along with his design team and his writers.

[15:56] Richie Grasso: We'll be right back welcome back that was very well directed that piece the scene changes were done perfect like they were just a moving the the scene changes moved this piece along with the characters it was like it was never like blackout scene change all right taken out of the element we're watching something the show was moving for what 90 minutes hardcore just moving going going going and directed really well amazing lighting you know and there's just having the band there spinning around like a ragdoll on that stage at times I was like this was cool and not only that but you look at the the the costume design of different time periods it's hard for a costume designer to have to design for the 70s and then the 40s and then the 20s and then the 1800s you know over a long time and they did it they did it I in talking about some of this cast everyone was really talented I will say standouts for me Jeb Brown as this lead singer narrator and I keep thinking that your mama's dead song that they would keep singing like he was crazy and he had this awesome narrator voice that was like relaxing and soothing but it was also like alerting like it wasn't you know it was a nice right we're talking about him a little bit more like I immediately when we when this show starts I immediately go to something like in Disney World the country bear jamboree where like we have that narrator come out and the band is playing constantly and then we have these little vignettes happening throughout the storytelling.

[17:33] Jeff Malone: And that's kind of where I feel like maybe they I don't know if they directly drew inspiration from something like that, but that style of storytelling jamboree style storytelling or um around the campfire, kind of the uh vaudevillian aspect of it was prevalent of the time. So of course they were gonna kind of mock and mimic that a little bit. Yeah, it is another amazing thing to kind of bring into this musical. I shouldn't say mock it, it really actually the opposite highlight and show, yeah. Because we were, you know, they're going on uh like a Carney Roadshow style thing, and like where jamborees probably were featured in that style, but yes, off topic, but going back to Jed Brown, loved it.

[18:16] Richie Grasso: Yeah, also it was nice to see Andrew Durand up there working as hard as he was. He has that one song where he's throwing things around and freaking out, and then for him to stay still for like 30 minutes at the end of the show just in stillness, he's a he's remarkable. He's shocked, he was hilarious in that. He does play this very he's really busy the first hour of the show, and it's really really great to then he's not, and then he's really not, and then he's not at all, right? Right. But um, but standing still is kind of uh a busy thing to do.

[18:44] Jeff Malone: Yeah, everyone really I mean at top, I think if his name is pronounced Tom Cessma, he was wonderful. Trent Saunders, I thought Julia Nittle was wonderful. There was just uh everyone really. I mean, I just think it's really smart. It's smart theater, and and then of course I see these I we're seeing so much off road right now, and I think to myself, does it transfer? Does it closing in April? What what's next? And I and we always how many times do you and I leave a show and we say that needs to transfer tomorrow? And then we say, No, that shouldn't transfer. How do you I guess I asked this question where what's the future of this show after in early April?

[19:19] Richie Grasso: I don't know. It's hard because I feel like this is one of those shows that needs to be seen like this. Like, I'll take for an example here. When Andrew Duran is doing that number and it's getting crazy and it's wild. That's an intimate kind of style, even though it's loud and a lot and over the top. It still needs to kind of be intimate. I'm looking around at people and I'm like loving it because you see some people there that are like, what am I watching right now? And then you see other people that are just like fully invested in loving it, and they want to like jam around with him. I don't know. I kind of feel like this could be a little bit more immersive in a way.

[20:01] Jeff Malone: It could be more immersive. What did we talk about recently? Where it was like, oh, what would it be like if we moved around? Like you moved around rooms like Sleep No More or like Yeah, kind of in that style where like, you know, you went and you watched the certain scenes happen, but then like you're also around this jam band and like you're actually jamming and moving around with them. I don't know. I feel like it could be something. I also feel like because of the different locales that this show is set in, that we could have it could even tour.

[20:36] Richie Grasso: Um and maybe do an out. It could tour to like small southern towns, LA. I it could go to you know, it can also do a commercial short run, maybe I don't know, in a small Broadway house. I feel like the house needs to stay small. I like the intimacy of those kind of somber scenes when he was dead at the end. There was something nice about being in a small space. I did I do remember leaving and saying to you, I'm gonna direct the show one day. Because I have to direct the show one day, somewhere or sometime. It's just such a awesome piece. It also might just be something that's like, hey, maybe it moves a little bit more midtown into one of those theaters.

[21:10] Jeff Malone: And we I know we always say it like a new world stages type place that is a little bit more commercial for the tourist, because I don't know if they're gonna go all the way downtown to see something like this. But it was really cool being in that theater and seeing something like this because we had never been to that theater.

[21:28] Richie Grasso: We'll be right back.

[21:33] Jeff Malone: Let's jump back into things. When I when I list for you a few of I want I want to say something else about this show too. When you listen to you, David Yazbek, for a lot of you we know us know who David Yasmek is. For those of you who do not, if I list some of these shows that he's written, he has done the band's visit, Tony Award best score, Tootsie, Women on the Verge, Dirty Run Scoundrels, The Full Monty. Did I just name five of the most vastly different plots, locale stories? To me, it's impressive when you leave a show and you say, Oh, who wrote that? Because I am not dissing the Lynn Man Wells, Alan Mankin, Steven Sonheims of the World, those are brilliant geniuses and of their own way.

A lot of times they write very similarly, regardless of the locale or time period. Their style is similar. Roger and Hammerstein was like that. I mean, we you could you can listen to Roger Hammerstein score and knew it was Ron Hammerstein, whether it was in K and I or Sound of Music, two completely different shows, right? For David to be writing the way he is for different shows like that, as comedic or as dramatic as they are, really proves his Tony Award-winning track record, really proves how he is a tour of force in this industry. And one day I love to talk to him and and have him come on because he's really knows what he's doing.

[22:49] Richie Grasso: Well, to touch on I agree with you. I think there's something different and cool about being more of a chameleon than having your defined sound. It's something we talk about a lot. And creating for the piece rather than creating what you want, if that makes sense. Because I feel like he found the sound, found the vibe, found the lyrics that works for a piece like this, and put that musical theater touch in here with his team. Let's not just say he did this all by himself.

[23:22] Jeff Malone: Sure, sure, sure. Because he did it with others. And but that attaching yourself, it is a different and new sound. And if you can do that, I think that brings a lot of talent. Totally, totally, totally. You know. It's really impressive. I really want to keep seeing more things like this, more works like this. Original, original concept ideas based on a true story. And when you hear about these stories, there's and this is American history, and this is it's important to tell stories as bizarre as they are like this. And I do I do hope for the sake of him, his family, that there is some peace now that he's been laid to rest. And and oh yeah, and and that it's just uh, you know, it's so much more than that. I wonder if they're I wonder if there is anyone out there that actually does have direct relation to this man and this story. I'm sure there has to be someone, whether they even know it or not.

[24:20] Richie Grasso: But I did want to touch on one last thing because I know we're getting close to the end, but like we've been seeing a lot of the off-Broadway houses, which is fun and cool. This was our first time at the Mineta Lane Theater. So, thoughts?

[24:32] Jeff Malone: A wonderful cozy space downtown in the village. It's a perfect size, it's right off the subway near some restaurants and some lively action. It's like the perfect, it's like go to the dictionary, look up off-roadway theater in the West Village of New York City, right? Like, and this is just I mean, there's definitely some smaller, more avant-garde theaters down there, but this was just so right off the corner there. Cute little cobblestone side street. Loved it. I loved it.

[24:57] Richie Grasso: I love this space. And I don't know how Audible's connection with this theater is now. Maybe they bought it or maybe or something because it says like Audible presents DEAD OUTLAW. So I don't know. Wouldn't need to do more research. But what I find really cool is like when you're outside of the actual theater, like you're going to the bathrooms or like the lobby and stuff like that. You feel the history coming through there. Because it still has that, like that's not renovated. And it's this. But then you walk into these theaters. Clearly, they've been renovated. There's high-tech lighting, there's new seats, all of these things. And you're just like, wow, they're keeping so much of like the history there, but also they're bringing up the theater to the modern day. And I don't know, off Broadway. What do we keep saying? It's killing it.

[25:44] Jeff Malone: Killing it. I would say out of all I let's say if we had seen 10 off Broadway shows, nine of them were amazing, right? I mean, like, really, really. And I now I feel like the off roadway season's slowing a little bit because now Broadway's kind of really picking up. So this is kind of wrapping up our off probably for now. We have we have some one or two things coming in the spring. This month probably, but uh a lot of Broadway coming.

[26:04] Richie Grasso: Yeah. Yes. There is oh my gosh, we're just about out of time.

[26:10] Jeff Malone: All right, so we're gonna wrap up final thoughts on DEAD OUTLAW. Go.

[26:13] Richie Grasso: What do you think, people? Did we love this?

[26:15] Jeff Malone: Yes, I loved it. I would go back to see it in a heartbeat because I thought it was great. And it's a New York Times critic's picks, so you know what? Go check it out. There's only a few weeks left of the run. Definitely go check it out if you can.

[26:31] Richie Grasso: Right. Yeah, for sure. Your thoughts, final thoughts?

[26:33] Jeff Malone: DEAD OUTLAW, one of the best all probably shows I've seen in a long time. All around Incredible. Go check it out if you can. And tell stories that are unheard of, that are untold, that are underdogs, that we need to tell stories. Doesn't always have to be famous people's stories to tell. He was famous in a very different way, right?

[26:50] Richie Grasso: Yeah.

[26:51] Jeff Malone: So tell the stories.

[26:52] Richie Grasso: Tell the stories.

[26:54] Jeff Malone: The fun fact about that. I thought I was gonna turn to Richie when we left that theater, and he was gonna say, I hated everything about this. So when Richie, the theater boy, loves it, there's a lot going on.

[27:05] Richie Grasso: That was a lot.

[27:05] Jeff Malone: I loved it. I loved every second of it.

[27:07] Richie Grasso: He does. It was brilliant.

[27:09] Jeff Malone: Well, that does wrap up our episode the discussion for the episode today. We hope you enjoyed our deep dive into DEAD OUTLAW. We will share the link in our description here with more ticket information for you. And don't forget, we do want to hear from you. So continue the conversation with us on Instagram and TikTok at Half Hour Podcast and let us know your thoughts on DEAD OUTLAW. That's all for now. We've got lots more coming up for you all. So getting ready to sign off for the day. I'm Richie.

[27:34] Jeff Malone: And I'm Jeff. Saying ta-da.

[27:37] Richie Grasso: Bye.