{"id":28772,"date":"2025-05-31T09:00:58","date_gmt":"2025-05-31T09:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=28772"},"modified":"2025-05-31T09:24:15","modified_gmt":"2025-05-31T09:24:15","slug":"in-dead-outlaw-andrew-durand-has-the-role-of-a-lifetime-and-after","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=28772","title":{"rendered":"In \u2018Dead Outlaw,\u2019 Andrew Durand Has the Role of a Lifetime. And After."},"content":{"rendered":"
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An hour before a Wednesday evening show, the actor Andrew Durand<\/a> clambered up to a platform on the stage of the Longacre Theater and began doing jumping jacks. \u201cWhen I walk onstage I never want to feel like I walked in off the street,\u201d he said between jumps. \u201cI want some sort of elevation physically.\u201d<\/p>\n

Durand, 39, a Broadway regular, is a first-time Tony nominee this year for his role in \u201cDead Outlaw,\u201d<\/a> a new musical that tells the improbable true story of Elmer McCurdy, a bandit fatally shot by a sheriff\u2019s posse in 1911. Because his preserved corpse went unclaimed, McCurdy spent the following decades as a sideshow attraction and an occasional movie extra before ending up as a prop in an amusement-park ride.<\/p>\n

McCurdy\u2019s unusual life and afterlife mean that Durand spends the first 40 minutes of the show leaping on and off tables, climbing up and down ladders, and hanging upside down. He spends the next 40 minutes standing still, barely breathing when the lights are on him. Before each performance, he puts himself through a 30-minute workout to prepare for all that motion, all that stillness.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Andrew Durand plays the motionless corpse of Elmer McCurdy for most of the second half of \u201cDead Outlaw.\u201d<\/span>Sara Krulwich\/The New York Times<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cI have all this crazy stuff to do in the show,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t want my body to go into shock.\u201d<\/p>\n

Durand, who has wavy brown hair, a wide forehead and the jawline of a cartoon superhero, grew up in a churchgoing family in a suburb of Atlanta. He saw his first play at 10, at the local community theater. He returned to act, to paint sets, to sell concession stand popcorn. He loved the openness, the silliness and the reverence he felt there. Eventually he recruited his whole family for the annual production of \u201cA Christmas Carol.\u201d An arts high school followed, then a theater conservatory, and not long after he graduated Durand was on Broadway in 2008, as a replacement cast member in \u201cSpring Awakening.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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During that show, Durand didn\u2019t pay much attention to workouts or warm-ups. \u201cI think I had some injuries that I didn\u2019t notice or deal with,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m pretty sure I tore a rotator cuff doing some choreography, but we were kids. We were just partying after the show, hanging out, sleeping in.\u201d<\/p>\n

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An hour before a Wednesday evening show, the actor Andrew Durand clambered up to a platform on the stage of the Longacre Theater and began doing jumping jacks. \u201cWhen I walk onstage I never want to feel like I walked in off the street,\u201d he said between jumps. \u201cI want some sort of elevation physically.\u201dDurand, 39, a Broadway regular, is a first-time Tony nominee this year for his role in \u201cDead Outlaw,\u201d a new musical that tells the improbable true story of Elmer McCurdy, a bandit fatally shot by a sheriff\u2019s posse in 1911. Because his preserved corpse went unclaimed, McCurdy spent the following decades as a sideshow attraction and an occasional movie extra before ending up as a prop in an amusement-park ride.McCurdy\u2019s unusual life and afterlife mean that Durand spends the first 40 minutes of the show leaping on and off tables, climbing up and down ladders, and hanging upside down. He spends the next 40 minutes standing still, barely breathing when the lights are on him. Before each performance, he puts himself through a 30-minute workout to prepare for all that motion, all that stillness.Andrew Durand plays the motionless corpse of Elmer McCurdy for most of the second half of \u201cDead Outlaw.\u201dSara Krulwich\/The New York Times\u201cI have all this crazy stuff to do in the show,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t want my body to go into shock.\u201dDurand, who has wavy brown hair, a wide forehead and the jawline of a cartoon superhero, grew up in a churchgoing family in a suburb of Atlanta. He saw his first play at 10, at the local community theater. He returned to act, to paint sets, to sell concession stand popcorn. He loved the openness, the silliness and the reverence he felt there. Eventually he recruited his whole family for the annual production of \u201cA Christmas Carol.\u201d An arts high school followed, then a theater conservatory, and not long after he graduated Durand was on Broadway in 2008, as a replacement cast member in \u201cSpring Awakening.\u201dDuring that show, Durand didn\u2019t pay much attention to workouts or warm-ups. \u201cI think I had some injuries that I didn\u2019t notice or deal with,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m pretty sure I tore a rotator cuff doing some choreography, but we were kids. We were just partying after the show, hanging out, sleeping in.\u201dWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28774,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28772"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28775,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28772\/revisions\/28775"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}