Tony nominee Julia Knitel seamlessly slips into a slew of characters at each performance of the new Broadway musical sensation Dead Outlaw.
The brilliant, non-linear show, which began life off-Broadway last year, delves into the strange story of Elmer McCurdy (Andrew Durand) who lived his ill-fated life as an outlaw and was gunned down at 30. But that’s just the beginning. McCurdy’s preserved corpse was then used and abused in the most fantastical and horrifying ways over a 65-year period until his shockingly mistreated mummified remains were discovered while cast and crew were shooting an episode of the ABC hit TV series, The Six Million Dollar Man in 1976. Director David Cromer, book writer Itmar Moses and composer/lyricists David Yazbek & Erik Della Penna achieve something sublime with this endeavor. See my review of the show HERE.
Early in Dead Outlaw, as McCurdy’s mother, Knitel rather nonchalantly reveal to her son that she’s actually not his real mom, basically changing the course of his life.
Then, as Helen, the young woman McCurdy falls for and almost settles down with, Knitel navigates the initial joy, encroaching fear, then despair but, ultimately, understanding that, “The man I was to marry was a man I didn’t know.”
Later, Knitel embodies Millicent, a 10-year-old who develops a bizarre connection with McCurdy’s mummified corpse. Who’s a little girl going to confide in but a friend who will simply listen? As she gets older, she muses, in song, to her dead bud,
“Well you get to stay the same
And I wish that I could too
Growing up ain’t as easy as it seems
So keep my secrets here with you…”
Knitel was just a sophomore at Fair Lawn High School in New Jersey when she was cast in the titular role in Thoroughly Modern Millie and won the Rising Star Award for Outstanding Lead Actress. Then, at the age of 16, she auditioned for and landed an ensemble part in the Roundabout Theater’s revival of Bye Bye Birdie in 2009, becoming the show’s Dance Captain.
In 2015 she was part of the First National Tour of Beautiful: The Carol King Musical, where she also played the lead. And she was a member of the First National Tour of Come From Away in 2018.
Other theater credits include: A Letter to Harvey Milk (Lortel nomination) and Panic of ’29 (59E59) as well as regional productions of Beautiful (Asolo Rep, Cape Playhouse (Gertrude Lawrence Award), and Gypsy (Muny, St. Louis Theatre Circle nomination).
The openly queer actress was nominated for an Outer Critics Circle Award for the off-Broadway production of Dead Outlaw last season.
The Contending had the best time chatting with Knitel about the show and her career.
