“I became completely obsessed with this show as soon as I read the script,” shares Julia Knitel about the new Broadway musical Dead Outlaw. The show centers on the shocking, unbelievably true story of Elmer McCurdy, an amateur robber shot down by a sheriff’s posse in the early 1900s whose mummified corpse floated around under many guises for 60 years.

The performer starred in the off-Broadway production last year at Minetta Lane and felt “so intimidated” at the time at the prospect of working with the “team of geniuses” who turned the folk figure into the main character of a musical, including Tony Award winners David Cromer, Itamar Moses, and David Yazbek. Now that the musical is settling into performances at the Longacre Theatre, the actress feels “more at home” in the piece and with the company and calls the chance to return to it “dreamy.” Knitel recently sat down...