Director David Cromer is one of the busiest men on Broadway. He’s at the helm of two of the most talked-about productions of the season: Good Night, and Good Luck, starring two-time Oscar winner George Clooney (in his Broadway debut), and the Off-Broadway-to-Broadway transfer of Dead Outlaw, a musical about outlaw-turned-corpse-turned-celebrity Elmer McCurdy.
Cromer joins a select group of directors — including Tina Landau and Kenny Leon — who have multiple shows on the boards this season. Leon opened revivals of Home and Our Town earlier in the season and is now represented on Broadway with the star-studded revival of Othello featuring Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal. Landau is behind the Idina Menzel–led musical Redwood and the long-awaited Main Stem revival of Floyd Collins, starring Jeremy Jordan.
Entertainment journalist for Spectrum News NY1 Frank DiLella recently caught up with Cromer during a rehearsal break from Dead Outlaw to talk about directing Clooney, staging a new musical, and how he’s going to celebrate when both of his shows are officially open at the end of the month.
Let’s go back to the beginning: How did you get involved with Good Night, and Good Luck?
[The producers] Jean Doumanian and Robert Fox brought up this project 10 years ago because they were working with George on the August: Osage County film. They said, “I think Good Night, and Good Luck would be an interesting show.” So they’ve been in development for a very a long time, but I wasn’t involved in it, and George and [Clooney’s collaborator and cowriter] Grant Heslov hadn’t written the script. Anna D. Shapiro was going to direct it, and it was going to be at Steppenwolf in Chicago. About three years ago, Jean called me and said Anna had to drop out and was I interested in the project? I said yes. About a year ago around this time, George Clooney decided that he wanted to play Edward R. Murrow, and then it became this giant production. And it was exciting to watch this skyrocket.
As a director, you’ve worked with big stars in the past — Ben Stiller, Edie Falco, Mary-Louise Parker — but George Clooney is GEORGE CLOONEY!
I give him total credit for making this process easy. I’m not immune to being intimidated. I don’t have the muscles to avoid that. George is the producer, the star, and he made the movie. You sort of have to give all credit to George and Grant Heslov. They wrote the film and play together. Grant is a big director. They came in openhearted and generous. And they’ve clearly spent their life in show business — especially with George’s wattage, making sure people feel comfortable. They’re not trying to boss people around or intimidate people.
This play is set in the 1950s, but it feels very much of the now. And you bring this show into 2025 at the end.
We’ve been here before. And this is about a time when we were “there.” This play is immediate — every minute. There’s a line in the show, in Murrow’s speech — it’s the tagline of our show — “We will not walk in fear one of another.” And another line in the script: “We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason.” You’re talking about people’s civil liberties being compromised on a daily basis. There’s not much of a difference between how we feel as Americans coming to work in the city and how these characters feel.
Video elements are center stage this season on Broadway, in shows including Sunset Blvd., The Picture of Dorian Gray, and Redwood. in your show, we see George Clooney as Edward R. Murrow in broadcast form, and Joseph McCarthy is played by Joseph McCarthy courtesy of archival footage.
It’s what they wrote. I think there might be versions of this show where actors play McCarthy or there is no video. There are several ways this show can be done. I was interested in the idea of the newness of the technology, the newness of television, the newness of going into people’s homes with pictures. And I was drawn to the idea of trying to make it as primitive in its technology as possible. We didn’t want to be too lavish.
You’re juggling two big shows on Broadway this spring: a big play and a new musical. How do you juggle two big projects at once?
I have fantastic assistants. We planned as carefully as we could. I would not do it if they were two completely new shows. Dead Outlaw is a re-exploration of something we did a year ago with the same cast. It took me a long time to admit that doing this is what I used to fantasize about, and so when you get the opportunity, you find the energy.
Let’s talk Dead Outlaw. It was a huge hit Off-Broadway last season. It’s based on a true story about an outlaw-turned-corpse-turned-celebrity named Elmer McCurdy. What can you tell me about the Broadway production?
Just today in rehearsal I revisited Dead Outlaw from the top, visiting every moment and thinking about, What should we do here? I had a satisfying experience doing that. I got to reexamine it. The story is great, and the music is beautiful, and the cast is great.
The subject matter for Dead Outlaw is fascinating. What makes this story sing as a musical?
Because it is effervescent and funny and lyrical. It’s about something deeply important to everybody, which is our relationship to our mortality. And it’s something we don’t like to talk about — people are uncomfortable talking about it: death. I’m not being morbid, but it’s a giant part of our existence. It happens to everybody.
How are you going to celebrate on April 28 when both of your shows have officially opened and are up and running?
I’m going to take a nap.