Anatomy of a Tony Awards Performance: How Dead Outlaw Brought Their Show to the World

When a Broadway show gets the chance to perform on the Tony Awards, the result is broadcast to millions. But behind the three- or four-minute long presentation lies an intense, weeks-long process—full of design decisions, technical adaptation, logistical problem-solving, and artistic negotiation. For the team behind Dead Outlaw, which was nominated for Best Musical at the 2025 Tony Awards, preparing for the telecast was a masterclass in translation: not just from stage to screen, but from a full-scale, time-hopping production to something that could be built, rehearsed, and performed once. And then disappear.

This wasn’t about simply shrinking a Broadway show to fit a television screen. It was about preserving the soul of the piece, and doing so with intention. �뵺�� caught up with scenic designer Arnulfo Maldonado, director David Cromer, and production stage manager Cynthia Cahill in the energetic aftermath of the ceremony to uncover what unfolded behind the scenes to make the Dead Outlaw performance a reality. Watch the performance below and scroll down for a detailed look at how it all came together.

“You get one shot,�� says production stage manager Cynthia "Cyd" Cahill. “If it doesn’t land, there’s no do-over. But if it does, it sticks.��

Dead Outlaw tells the true story of Elmer McCurdy, a failed train robber whose body was embalmed and exhibited for decades after his death. The show spans more than a century of American history, jumping between 1911, the 1970s, and the present. That kind of storytelling requires space—and a lot of it. That's a tall order when trying to fit everything into a camera lens.

“We knew we’d have to cut things down,�� says director David Cromer. “There's all kinds of frustrations with the Tonys. No one ever has enough time." Cromer's the goal for the performance wasn’t just to condense, it was to preserve. He calls the Tony broadcast “a kind of record,�� one that lasts long after a show closes. “It’s one of the few things that end up living online. That performance becomes a big part of what the show was, in the long run.��

That meant every choice mattered. Which songs? What visuals? What to cut and what to keep? Cromer and his team eventually settled on a medley of the two songs that open the show��"Ballad" and "Dead"—that would highlight both the show’s emotional center and its larger scope.

Working with the Tony Awards production team required not only precision, but diplomacy. “They’re trying to make a good show too,�� Cromer said of Tonys broadcast director Glenn Weiss and his crew. “They’re not against you.�� Still, every Broadway creative has to advocate for their own vision within the constraints of live TV. Cromer recalls the careful balancing act: “You go to Glenn Weiss and his team and say, ‘We want to do this, we want to see this…’�� and then trust that the collaboration will result in something true to the show. “They understand what we’re doing,�� he added, “but they also have to make something that works in a very different format.��

As for what it felt like to finally see it come together on stage, Cromer said it was all about simplicity. “We just made it smaller,�� he says. “We did the same thing we do in the show, just compacted.�� He stayed focused on the essential beats��Jeb Brown walking into frame, Andrew Durand's stillness, the group assembled in tension. “It’s your only shot to capture it,�� he adds. “So we tried to get the bones of it across. Not a commercial, just a window into the show.��

Cromer’s goal for the broadcast was never just to advertise Dead Outlaw: “I wanted it to feel like the show". He worked closely with the Tony broadcast team to capture key moments, especially visually. “I’d like to see Jeb alone,�� he told them while reviewing scratch rehearsal videos. “I’d like to see the guys with space behind them.�� These weren’t just staging notes—they were emotional cues, ways to guide the audience through the compressed narrative.

When it came time to tackle the show’s more explicit material for a national audience, Cromer found an elegant workaround. “We didn’t want to bleep it on the broadcast,�� he explains, referring to when Durand says at the end of "Ballad": “Let’s go rob that fucking train.�� Music director Rebekah Bruce pre-recorded a musical bleep, seamlessly built into the track. “CBS bleeps with silence,�� Cromer noted. “So we built it in.�� The solution preserved both the pacing and the humor—without compromising the show’s character (and left no room for errors/potential FCC fines).

For Cromer, one of the key creative challenges was finding a way to capture Dead Outlaw’s timeline jumping between the past and the present. For the performance, he engaged members of the cast to play 1970s era reporters uncovering the story. “We had them as reporters out in the house"—referencing the cast members who performed in the aisles of Radio City Music Hall with camera operators following their every move. “That was a way to get the concept across immediately.�� Cromer worked closely with the broadcast team to integrate those moments into the televised staging, using their movement and camera work to hint at the larger narrative structure of the show. “It was all about suggesting the shape of the full production in a few brushstrokes.��

Then there was the matter of that set. Scenic designer Arnulfo Maldonado had to rethink the show's set for a one-night-only performance on the sprawling stage of Radio City Music Hall. And they couldn't transport the set to the Tonys or rely on projections. The designer wasn’t doing it in a vacuum—Maldonado was also responsible for the Tony performances for Buena Vista Social Club and Real Women Have Curves.

“F�ǰ� Real Women Have Curves, we made these beautiful renderings that were 3D and painterly and layered,�� explains Maldonado. The Tonys team photographed that show's entire Broadway set and digitally recreated it as a stylized, projected background. “It was very cinematic,�� he says. That projection strategy helped overcome the usual Tony Awards challenge: no Broadway show can bring its entire set to Radio City. Projections are faster, lighter, and easier to load in and out. Buena Vista Social Club used a similar technique.

Arnulfo Maldonado's rendering of the *Dead Outlaw* Tony Awards set. Courtesy of Arnulfo Maldonado

But Dead Outlaw required an actual set on the stage, since that's what the band and lead actor Jeb Brown performs on. “There’s something to just having something tactile and real,�� says Maldonado Central to the show is the wagon: a mobile, multi-use structure that functions as everything from a band platform to a train car. “We had to build a scaled-down version,�� he says. “It doesn’t have to automate. It doesn’t have to be weight-bearing.�� The Tony version was stripped of mechanics—it couldn’t turn or transform. Notes Maldonado: “Cost-wise, it’s like a quarter of the cost for the full thing. But it preserved that visual authenticity.��

The Broadway version, built by Hudson Scenic, is substantial—built for eight shows a week and filled with hidden functionality. Thankfully, the same shop built the Tony replica. “We were able to maintain the look, only light enough to be pushed out by the stagehands," says Maldonado.

Even when stripping the wagon down for the Tonys, the designer was intentional about what remained. “The silhouette was important, that profile—people associate it with the show. And the surfaces still needed to catch light the same way.�� With so many productions leaning into projections, Maldonado’s choice to keep things physical wasn’t just logistical, it was philosophical: “It needed to feel built, not broadcast.��

The details were crucial. The props team, led by Denise J. Grillo, worked tirelessly. Notes Maldonado: “A lot of the things were replicated exactly—like the map of Oklahoma that sits behind the music director. Thankfully, we already had an art file for that.�� Every kitschy Americana flourish was recreated or closely approximated under intense deadline pressure.

Meanwhile, Cahill was deep in the weeds of logistics. “We were doing 16, 17-hour days," she shares. "We had two rehearsals in the theatre before the Tonys people came...They come though two weeks out, and film scratch tape of your number on their phones so that they can start planning their lighting looks and their camera shots and things like that. So we had two two-hour rehearsals before that to work out where we thought we wanted the camera to be, where the guys were going to be entering and exiting, and how it was going to flow."

One of the trickiest parts of flow to manage was the edited scope of the number. Normally, the "Ballad" into "Dead" sequence is over 6 minutes long. For the Tonys, the entire thing was four minutes and 18 seconds.

As any longtime theatre fan can tell you, most promotional performances are pre-recorded in one was or another. For a production like the Tonys, there are simply too many moving parts to leave everything up to live chance. For Dead Outlaw, that meant pre-recording the band, who would play along to the track live, without the ability to vamp or otherwise adjust their tempos on the fly should an actor's quick change linger even one second longer than planned.

Cahill breaks it down: "Our music supervisor was able to create an instrumental-only version of the track that we used, so the cast was re-memorizing that, plus the script version of the edited production number. We really had to be precise about it. If our actors said a line even a tiny bit too long, the track would cut them off. We really had to drill in that timing, quite a lot. So the week before the Tonys, before our dress rehearsal day, and our camera blocking morning—I had the cast rehearsing between shows on Wednesday night and on Saturday night before the dress rehearsal Sunday morning, just to keep it locked in and to make sure that we all knew what we were doing. Making them go back and forth between the Tony version and the show was really challenging for their brains."

Indeed, on the morning of the Tonys on June 8, at the dress rehearsal at Radio City, actor Durand messed up the lines to the truncated version of "Ballad," remarking to the invited audience, "I'll do it better tonight." (He did.)

Andrew Durand and Jeb Brown in *Dead Outlaw* Matthew Murphy

On the day of the ceremony, the Dead Outlaw cast had to attend Tonys dress rehearsal in the morning, go back to the Longacre to get ready, then go back to Radio City for the broadcast. It was up to Cahill keep the schedule tight and the cast together. She coordinated group transportation between the Longacre Theatre (where all of the non-nominated members of the cast got ready and into costume) and Radio City (where they had to perform).

Balancing that with Dead Outlaw’s three Tony-nominated cast members—Jeb Brown, Andrew Durand, and Julia Knitel—was a particular challenge for Cahill. “They all had different call times, different rehearsal needs,�� she explains. The juggling act was made trickier by the compressed rehearsal schedule and overlapping responsibilities. “They all had press commitments. You’re always just trying to make sure nobody gets overtaxed,�� she says. “They were being pulled in so many directions, and it was important to make sure they had what they needed—quiet time, food, the right shoes—whatever it was, when they needed it.��

For the non-nominated cast, “they bussed them up and back in stages,�� she says. “Because we had two casts—one that was based at the Longacre, and then the nominee group that went to Radio City" timing was crucial. “They had to be dressed and ready, so we’d bus them up, they’d go through security, get ready for rehearsal. And then we’d bus them back down until it was time to do the performance that night... It was a puzzle,�� she shares. “A very, very carefully timed-out puzzle.��

During the live broadcast, Cahill positioned herself just outside the audience with a headset, a show monitor, and a walkie, watching every move unfold in real time.

“It was the same quick change team as Broadway,�� she explains, referring to the crew stationed just offstage for rapid costume swaps. “Andrew and Jeb had quick changes to do at the top and bottom, to get in and out of their formal wear: it was very tight.�� Cahill, who had walked the path with them in advance, was also tracking props. “I followed them out into the audience�� watching the monitor, listening for the sound�� just making sure it’s looking good, timing’s right.��

Once the lights came up, there was no margin for error—every cue had to hit precisely, with no take two.

Leigh Silverman and Cynthia Cahill Tricia Baron

Dead Outlaw is a story about what lasts—about how people get remembered, or don’t. “History gets distorted,�� Cromer shares. “In our case, this performance becomes its own kind of distortion—but hopefully a beautiful one. Hopefully one that’s honest.��

Like Elmer McCurdy himself, whose body was mistaken for a prop and hung in a California funhouse for years, the question of what remains after life looms large in Dead Outlaw. The Tony performance became one more chapter in that strange, ongoing legacy—a moment where art and history, memory and myth, collided under the spotlight.

“It’s not just a performance,�� says Cromer. “It’s a footprint.��

“You only get one shot,�� Cahill adds. “You want it to land. And then it’s gone.��

But not entirely. Somewhere in a stage manager’s prompt book, in iPhone videos from rehearsal, in the minds of viewers—and in the architecture of a tiny wooden wagon—that performance lives on. It may have lasted only four minutes, but like Elmer’s story, it won’t vanish. It’s part of the record now. And the record matters.