Thom Sesma wins Outer Critics Circle Award for DEAD OUTLAW; nominated for Lortel and Drama Desk

Ep. 70
BACKSTAGE PASS with Lia Chang
Airdate 3/31/24
Updated: 5/5/24 Thom has garnered his 3rd Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Featured Performer in a Musical; a 2024 Outer Critics Circle Award nod and 2024 Drama Desk Award Nod.
Updated: 5/13/24 Thom won the 2024 Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Featured Performer in a Musical. Dead Outlaw was also named Outstanding Off-Broadway Musical and Andrew Durand won for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Musical.
Three-Time Lortel Award Nominee Thom Sesma is currently featured in the NY Times Critics Pick, DEAD OUTLAW, as Dr. Thomas Noguchi. Thom Sesma shares stories from his performances in DEAD OUTLAW, SWEENEY TODD, LETTERS OF SURESH, DOUBLE HELIX and more in this conversation about his acting career.
Recent credits: Oliver! (Encores), Double Helix (Bay Street Theatre), Sister Act (The MUNY). Other credits include A Man of No Importance (Classic Stage Company), Letters of Suresh (Second Stage - Lortel Award nomination), Unknown Soldier (Playwrights Horizons), Ghosts (Williamstown/Seattle Rep) and numerous television appearances.
Sesma has starred on Broadway in The Times They Are A-Changin', Man of La Mancha, La Cage Aux Folles, Search and Destroy, Titanic, Nick and Nora, Chu Chem and Face Value. National Tours: The Lion King, Miss Saigon, Titanic. Regional appearances include McCarter Theatre, Yale Rep, Arena Stage, Old Globe, Cincinnati Playhouse, Signature Theatre, Centre Stage, Music Theatre Wichita, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Pasadena Playhouse. For complete details, visit www.thomsesma.com. Instagram: @thsesma.
With music & lyrics by Tony Award winner David Yazbek (The Band's Visit, Tootsie) & Erik Della Penna, book by Tony Award winner Itamar Moses (The Band's Visit), conceived by David Yazbek, and directed by Tony Award winner David Cromer (The Band's Visit, The Sound Inside, Prayer for the French Republic), Dead Outlaw will also be recorded and released on Audible at a later date, extending its reach to millions of listeners around the world.
Dead Outlaw's cast features Jeb Brown, Eddie Cooper, Andrew Durand, Dashiell Eaves, Julia Knitel, Ken Marks, Trent Saunders, and Thom Sesma. Understudies include Emily Fink, Austin Ku, George Merrick, and Max Sangerman.
Elmer McCurdy was an ambitious, turn-of-the-20th-century outlaw whose death at the hands of a Western posse ended a life of failed crime and alcoholism and began a brilliant career as a mummified side-show attraction that travelled the USA for decades. By the time this journey ended, his name had been forgotten and his desiccated body was hanging in a house-of-horrors ride at an amusement park in Southern California, spray-painted a day-glo orange. Then one day, a grip for the “Six-Million Dollar Man” TV show jostled what he thought was “just a dummy” and an arm fell off, revealing a human bone and beginning a hunt for the origins of this enigma.
David Yazbek, haunted by this true story for thirty years, told his friend and bandmate Erik Della Penna the story, and as the two of them discussed why this tale of money, ambition, fame, memory and death was so compelling, they started writing songs for a stage-piece based on this odd life and these universal yet somehow very American themes. Realizing they were onto something as unique and challenging as anything they'd heard or written before, they approached Yazbek's The Band's Visit collaborators Itamar Moses and David Cromer, who quickly became haunted and charmed by Elmer's story.
The creative team for Dead Outlaw includes Ani Taj (movement direction), Dean Sharenow (music supervisor), Arnulfo Maldonado (scenic design), Sarah Laux (costume design), Heather Gilbert (lighting design), Kai Harada & Joshua Millican (sound design), Isabella Curry (soundscape composition), Rebekah Bruce (music director), Erik Della Penna, Dean Sharenow, & David Yazbek (orchestrations), Faye Armon-Troncoso (properties), and Amanda Michaels (production stage manager), with casting by Tara Rubin Casting, Peter Van Dam, CSA. Technical supervision is by Hudson Theatrical Associates' Sean Gorski with general management by Baseline Theatrical's Jonathan Whitton.
Lia Chang is an actor, a multi-media content producer, activist, documentarian and an Award winning filmmaker and co-founder of Bev’s Girl Films making films that foster inclusion and diversity on both sides of the camera. Lia is also the host and Executive Producer of BACKSTAGE PASS WITH LIA CHANG, an Arts and Entertainment and Lifestyle program that airs on Sundays at 6:30pm on FIOS 34, RCN 83, Spectrum 56/1996 and streams on MNN2. Lia was recently profiled on Asian American Life. BGF collaborates with and produces multi-media content for artists, actors, designers, theatrical productions, composers, musicians and corporations. www.liachang.com www.liachangphotography.com