Holding the Moment: Dead Outlaw's Set Designer Arnulfo Maldonado
On creating a set and a story that keeps surprising you.
In this astonishing overfull jack-in-the-box moment of the 2023-2024 Broadway season, there are also some really exceptional shows happening far from the Great White Way.
Perhaps my favorite is Dead Outlaw, a new musical from David Yazbeck and Erik Della Penna, with book by Itamar Moses (whose other current off-Broadway show The Ally is another fantastic show, and one I will be covering here soon).
Warning: Spoilers ahead.
Dead Outlaw tells the true story of Elmer McCurdy, a small time criminal from the turn of the last century, who ended up getting shot to death at age 31 after a failed bank robbery…
…and then his mummified remains became a sideshow entertainment at various sites for much of the next sixty years.
Yeah. It’s wild.
The show, staged at Minetta Lane Theater by director David Cromer (and closing this weekend!) spends its first half telling the sad and sometimes ridiculous story of Elmer McCurdy, and its second following his body as it gets re-purposed by a variety of different people. Usually when a play or movie tries to tell the story of a real person, the worst mistake it can make is to try and include everything. But that choice turns out to be Outlaw’s masterstroke. The more moments of Elmer’s journey that we get, as strange and varied as they are, the more meaningful his story becomes.
Minetta Lane is not a big stage. The set is basically just one free-standing stationary area on which sits a band who sing, play and narrate.
Here’s what we see when we enter:
The vibe is partially bar-stage for a band, part rehearsal-space-in-the-lead-singer’s-basement (with Christmas, tiki, and other lights on it, about which, more tomorrow…).
I knew nothing about the show going in. And the band-area so filled the space, I wasn’t sure whether this would be an actual musical or just a kind of concert. But in fact action happens all around the band area, as well as on top of it, in moments that turn that set piece into a boxcar.
But then suddenly, at a moment when Elmer is drunk and raging, he shoves that band set piece—and it moves. It looks so solid and permanent, that comes as a complete shock.
But then as the show goes on, there are more surprises like this—a number of cast members end up moving that set all the way across the stage, turning it into first the hideout of the gang that Elmer works with for a time (the band play the gang), and then the boxcar again. And while you can’t tell it at first, there are actually different sets of lights on the band stage which get used at different moments to create wonderfully unique moods.
In every respect, really, from story to set and light to character, Dead Outlaw keeps setting up expectations only to pull the rug right out from under us. That is such a feat. We’re all such savvy readers of story these days, it’s very hard to surprise us.
And the fact that Dead Outlaw is able to do that again and again creates a tremendous sense of delight. It’s like the show allows us to be kids again hearing a bedtime story. We don’t know how it’s going to surprise us next, but we know it will. And the anticipation is just wonderful.
Set designer Arnulfo Maldonado is no stranger to playing with expectations. His set design for A Strange Loop involved just a simple back wall of six entrances. But then as the show goes on those entrances get used in so many different ways (and also break apart and move), you almost don’t even see it’s as scene to scene the same set. Maldonado was nominated for a Tony for his work.
I recently did email interviews with Arnulfo and lighting designer Heather Gilbert about their work on the show. We’ll hear from Heather tomorrow. But today, I’m happy to present my interview with Arnulfo, whose work on the show has been nominated for a Lucille Lortel Award (Bravo!)
As you got started on Dead Outlaw, what were the biggest stage design challenges of the project? And what made it an exciting project to consider?
The fairly small but mighty stage of the Minetta Lane Theater was both the biggest stage design challenge as well as the most exciting. A slightly non-traditional space (for what the needs of a musical usually entail) helped me to troubleshoot how to have the show best move given its tight confines. The Minetta Lane has no offstage space outside of the area directly stage right that serves as the space for an A2, large furniture pieces (hi coffin, hi autopsy tables), quick change areas AND a dimmer room, so incorporating other offstage space stage left helped me craft the container for the show.
Did you always have a sense that the main set piece was going to be the band’s stage, and that it would end up serving so many different purposes, or did that develop?
We always knew the band was going be very much part of the visual picture given how integral they are to the storytelling, especially Jeb [Brown], who does double duty, both as main narrator and singer. The idea of the boxcar developed out of merging the world of the early 1900s (and train cars) with visuals of punk basement shows/DIY spaces where bands played.
Punk/rock/garage power trio Black Rabbit performing, 2014.
We looked at photos of bands playing in non-traditional performance spaces and how the spaces around them helped energize and inform the rooms they were playing in — it was important for us to find the right balance of nodding to the authenticity of these spaces and not have anything feel too forced or decorative.
The band stage has lots of different kinds of lights on it which each get used in different scenes to establish a fresh mood or moment. Were you working hand in hand with the lighting team from the start, or was that a discovery along the way?
I am always designing with lighting in mind. That’s how my brain works as I begin to visualize the world. Lighting is integral in all my design work so I try to have early convos with the lighting designer as I’m developing the environment. For DEAD OUTLAW, Heather Gilbert (the incredible lighting designer) and I were in constant communication about the lighting practicals (twinkle lights, festoon lights, etc) and how they helped drive the story, where color is introduced, when to make the space feel like a very intentional rock show and when to carve out the darkness w/ light. Having this boxcar be the central character in the scenic design, it's important that the lighting help telegraph the boxcar's literal and figurative journey.
Seeing Elmer push the band stage was a laugh out loud surprise. Later the whole set piece moves across the stage, with so many actors and instruments standing on it. How did you make it so easily mobile?
[Director David] Cromer is a genius — my impulse was to start the show with the boxcar doing an 180 degree spin, revealing the band (it would have started with the boxcar facing upstage). And about halfway thru rehearsals he realized, no let's hold that moment. Let's not reveal all our cards quite yet.
His idea was to wait until we were about 1/4 of the way in, restrain the action so that when the boxcar finally moves it’s motivated by Andrew/Elmer’s freak out punk dance during “KILLED A MAN IN MAINE.” It's such a simple gesture, but up until this point most of the audience thinks the centered boxcar is a static piece with action happening in the outer peripheries; no one has imagined that this massive box is suddenly going to pivot and move.
This begins the boxcar's journey thru the cramped quarters of the Minetta Lane stage. We made sure that each time the boxcar moved it helped propel the action forward. And having the ensemble move the piece became part of the DIY vocabulary inherent in the show: “We are crafting a story for you, let us show you by rearranging the space for you.”
The first time we have the boxcar do a significant pivot, it is helped by a guide that is helping it pivot (under the boxcar). Once it does a full move stage right it's being guided by actors and crew at all four corners of the unit . At this point it's technically a freewheelin' unit..a hefty one, so its fairly easy to navigate given its weight.
Because the band stage seems so clearly at first to be a stationary piece just meant to house them, each new use of it creates a fresh moment of surprise and delight. It reminds me of the way the booths function in A Strange Loop—once again, they look at first glance to be of singular purpose, but as the Thoughts interact with them they become a bus station, bathhouse stalls, etc.
A Strange Loop, 2021.
Are concepts like surprise or a deceptive simplicity important in the way you think about stage design? (Or if not, what are some design concepts that you particularly value?
I go into each show without any preconceived ideas of how the design will function. A lot of the surprises emanate from design convos through out rehearsal, discoveries made in staging etc. I suppose part of the reason my designs contain moments of revelation is because the one thing I do always begin a new show design with is this notion: Nothing is on stage unless it helps push the story forward. It has to have a reason to be there.
Thus my work tends to push itself to either a minimalist approach or the exact opposite, maximalism. In the case of both A STRANGE LOOP and DEAD OUTLAW these designs started simple and minimal and part of their journey is how the sets continue to evolve and then reset back to a version of how they started at the beginning. They skirt the edges of maximalism (which perhaps land it in the world of the absurd) which sometimes translates as a nice set-revelation chuckle.
Thanks so much, Arnulfo. Congratulations again!
Tomorrow, his partner in crime, Heather Gilbert! [Update: Here’s the link!]
If you’re in New York, you’ve got one more weekend to see it!