Dead Outlaw’s Julia Knitel on Tarot, Tony Nods and ‘Woo Woo’ Timing

Age: 32

Hometown: Fair Lawn, New Jersey

Current Role: Julia Knitel takes on a chameleonic part in Dead Outlaw, a musical based on the true story of Elmer McCurdy, an early 20th-century outlaw whose mummified corpse became a traveling curiosity. Knitel plays Helen, McCurdy’s adoptive mother, Maggie, his fiancée, and Millicent, a curious teen who discovers his body decades after his death. She also appears as a cowboy, an assistant and others. “Each is a joy,” she says.

Credits: Knitel made her Broadway debut in Bye Bye Birdie and later appeared in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, playing the lead role both on Broadway and on tour. Other credits include the national tour of Come From Away, off-Broadway productions of A Letter to Harvey Milk and The Panic of ’29 and regional runs of Gypsy, The Constant Wife and The Producers. Her screen work includes The Other Two and Miles.

Born This Way
Knitel didn’t stumble into theater in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. She was born into it. Her parents, both professional actors, started St. Anne Stages, the town’s community theater. “I grew up doing their shows,” she says. “And what was really cool about it was that I got an understanding of and respect for every aspect of what it takes to put on a show.” After school, she was sewing costumes and painting sets with her dad. Her first official role might have been Little Kim in Show Boat, but she’s quick to point out she got her start even earlier. “My mom was like nine months pregnant with me and playing Maria in The Sound of Music,” she says. “So it was technically in utero.”

Bye Bye High School
When she was 16, Knitel got up at two in the morning to line up for an open call for the Broadway revival of Bye Bye Birdie. “I had never auditioned professionally for anything,” she says. “The line wrapped around the block on 43rd Street.” She booked it: a real teenager playing a teenager on Broadway. Two weeks before she was set to begin, she quietly competed in the first-ever Jimmy Awards and made it to the finals. (She sang “Gimme Gimme” from Thoroughly Modern Millie.) “Nobody knew what it was back then, and I was starting rehearsals for a Broadway show in two weeks, so I just didn’t tell anyone,” she says, acknowledging the reality of standing out at that age. “The fact that I was going to make my Broadway debut still didn’t feel real—and then all of a sudden I was surrounded by the most talented kids from across the country? I just wanted to make friends and soak up the entire experience.” Meanwhile, her school told her she could only miss 14 days. Anything beyond that and she wouldn’t advance. So she dropped out and gave school one last kiss.

Talent, Meet Technique
The years after her Broadway debut were full of near misses. “I was auditioning,” Knitel says. “I had gotten an agent through Birdie, and I was getting into the final callback for show after show.” But she kept coming in second. “It was down to me and one other girl every time.” She felt solid in her voice and movement but knew there was still something missing. “I felt like those two parts of me were really well trained, and that I was sort of just going with my instincts when it came to acting,” she says. “I started looking into BFA acting programs that would allow me to come in with a GED.” She enrolled in a classical acting program at Marymount Manhattan. If she couldn’t book the part, she’d train until she could.

You’ve Got a Friend
After her time at Marymount, Knitel joined the Broadway company of Beautiful as Betty. A note in the audition materials mentioned the role would also cover Carole King. “I remember reading the appointment and going, ‘Well, I’m never going to get this. I’m 21 years old. I can’t cover Carole King. That’s insane!’” Despite her initial doubts, she understudied on Broadway and later took over the lead on tour. “It was the most magical time of my life,” she says. “I was so happy. I loved that show, the people, everything!” She also credits that foundation: “If I had not done those two years of acting training, I know I would not be where I am in my career today.”

The List That Changed Everything
Knitel spent the next four years (plus a pandemic pause) touring in Come From Away. It was a joyful reset after the pressure of leading her previous show. “Beautiful was a challenge. Come From Away felt like a homecoming.” Next, she wanted to push herself in a new direction. She made a list. “I said I want it to be something that people really connect with and that moves them and makes them laugh. I want the score to be singular and unlike anything else, and I want a team that I respect and a role that really used all of the parts of me.” What followed, she says, was “just that amount of woo woo.” The script for Dead Outlaw came her way. “I knew it was exactly what I had asked for,” she says. “It was freaky. It was like, actually freaky.”

Outlaw, Rewritten
The off-Broadway run of Dead Outlaw shook Knitel’s confidence, but before the Broadway transfer, she grounded herself with daily rituals: yoga, journaling, tarot, breathwork. “It unlocked something in me.” On Tony nomination morning, she watched the livestream on her phone. When her name was called, she dropped it and burst into tears. “It really freaked out my cat.” Of the many characters she plays, one hits especially close. “Millicent is my little sweet, nerdy, bullied, has-a-crush-on-a-boy Julia,” she says. “She is getting to shine on a Broadway stage every night.” Now with Broadway audiences responding and a Tony nomination, the recognition has started to sink in. “It still doesn’t feel real,” she says. “But I think I’m finally ready to believe it.”