Tony, Emmy and Grammy winning composer/writer David Yazbek is also a performer and recording artist with 5 solo albums released. His path from his first gig as a TV gag writer to his current position as one of Broadway’s preeminent composers has been full of twists and turns but always has centered on music, humor, and an attempt at a deep connection with audiences and collaborators. He has been haunted by the story of Elmer McCurdy, the Dead Outlaw, since hearing it for the first time 30 years ago. He’s very pleased to be telling it with this great team of artists. Some Credits: Broadway: music and lyrics for The Band’s Visit (Tony Award Best Score), Tootsie, Women On The Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Full Monty. Music for Larry David’s Fish In The Dark. Yazbek is a Producer/Creative Consultant on the recent hit musical Buena Vista Social Club currently running at the Atlantic Theater. Albums: Solo albums include The Laughing Man, Tock, Damascus!, Tape Recorder, Evil Monkey Man. He is currently completing a new album and continues to perform with his band. The New York Times called him “a daredevil juggler catching spiked pins in the traveling carnival of his imagination.” He has co-produced all of his cast albums including The Band’s Visit (Grammy Award). TV and Film: “Boardwalk Empire,” “Late Night with David Letterman” (Emmy Award Best Writing), hundreds of songs, including the infamous Carmen Sandiego Theme. Dozens of scripts for episodic TV. In the works are a new musical with Jeffrey Lane, a Dead Outlaw documentary film, an animated feature film for 2024 and eventually a new solo album.

Erik Della Penna is a composer, lyricist, and guitarist who has appeared on over 60 rock, pop, and Americana albums. He has toured and recorded extensively with Joan Osborne, Natalie Merchant, and Joan Baez and has worked with legendary music producer T-Bone Burnett. He has recorded seven albums of original songs with Kill Henry Sugar, his “metropolitan folk duo” with Dead Outlaw music supervisor Dean Sharenow. Erik is one of the primary songwriters and provides vocals, guitar, and banjo for Hazmat Modine, a band that The New York Times called a “category-defying blues-rooted group that can swerve into New Orleans brass-band, jazz, and ska.” Erik has written two children’s musicals—Toby and the Big Top, produced by Walden Media, and Kitty Hawk, which is regularly produced at the Adrienne Arsht Center. He also wrote the score for the documentary, Tree Man on Netflix, and contributed songs for many other documentaries and television shows. It was during a recording session for David Yazbek that David first told Erik the strange story of Elmer McCurdy, and Erik found himself morbidly engaged by it. The songs of Dead Outlaw are the result of their long reflection on death, fame, and the aberrations of America. 

Itamar Moses is the Tony Award-winning author of the full-length plays Outrage, Bach At Leipzig, The Four of Us, Celebrity Row, Back Back Back, Yellowjackets, Completeness, The Whistleblower, and The Ally, the short play collection Love/Stories and the musicals Nobody Loves You (with Gaby Alter), Fortress Of Solitude (with Michael Friedman), The Band’s Visit (with David Yazbek), and An American Tail (with Michael Mahler and Alan Schmuckler). Other awards for his work include Lucille Lortel, New York Drama Critics Circle, Outer Critics Circle, and Obie awards in New York, as well as awards from the Portland, San Diego, Dallas, and Bay Area Theatre Critics Circles. Television work includes “Men of a Certain Age,” “Boardwalk Empire,” and “The Affair.” He is a proud member of the Dramatists’ Guild and the Writer’s Guild of America East. Born in Berkeley, CA, he now lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Dean Sharenow is a Grammy-winning record producer/engineer. Broadway: Girl From the North Country, The Band’s Visit, Tootsie, The Cher Show, The Last Ship, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. Off-Broadway: Buena Vista Social Club, The Bedwetter, The Total Bent, Fortress of Solitude. Album producer/engineer: Stephen Ulrich, Mamie Minch, Girl From the North Country, Oklahoma! (2019), Tootsie, The Band’s Visit, The Great Comet…, Women on the Verge…, and Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson.

Ani Taj is a choreographer working from the premise that dance can actually be liberatory and FUN. Recent thrills include an apocalyptic movie musical starring Tilda Swinton (co-choreographed with Sam Pinkleton), dance club experiences for Virgin Voyages, Hedwig (Olney Theatre), Runaways (Delacorte), and 10 years with The Dance Cartel. TDC highlights include PS1/MoMA, Storm King, Brooklyn Museum, the High Line, Ace Hotel NY, Oberon (ART); CONAN; The Late Late Show; music videos for Yoko Ono, Reggie Watts, Vic Mensa; VR experience Runnin (Sundance, SXSW). @anitaj

David Cromer most recently directed Prayer for the French Republic. New York credits include Camp Siegfried, A Case for the Existence of God, The Sound Inside, The Band’s Visit, The Treasurer, The House of Blue Leaves, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Nikolai and the Others, The Effect, When the Rain Stops Falling, Tribes, Adding Machine, Our Town, and Orson’s Shadow. For his work he has received a Tony Award, a Drama Desk, three Obies, three Lortels, and in 2010 he was named a MacArthur Foundation fellow.