Beetlejuice on Broadway Tickets

By: Book by Scott Brown & Anthony King, with Music & Lyrics by Eddie Perfect, based on the Warner Bros. motion picture Beetlejuice with story by Michael McDowell & Larry Wilson
Director: Alex Timbers
Producer: Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures and Langley Park Productions
Cast list: Alex Brightman (as Beetlejuice), Elizabeth Teeter (as Lydia), Kerry Butler (as Barbara), David Josefsberg (as Adam), Adam Dannheisser (as Charles), Leslie Kritzer (as Delia), Jill Abramovitz (as Juno), Kelvin Moon Loh (as Otho), Danny Rutigliano (as Maxie Dean), Dana Steingold (as the Girl Scout)
Design: David Korins
Lighting: Kenneth Posner
Costume: William Ivey Long
Choreography: Connor Gallagher
Sound: Peter Hylenski
Other info: Music direction by Kris Kukul, music production by Matt Stine, dance arrangements by David Dabbon, projection design by Peter Nigrini, puppet design by Michael Curry, special effects design by Jeremy Chernick, illusions by Michael Weber

Beetlejuice may be stuck in the same house for eternity, but the Beetlejuice musical has traveled far. Before coming to Broadway, the show premiered at Washington, D.C.'s National Theatre. The whole cast from that production, led by Brightman, transferred with Beetlejuice to New York in April 2019, where it ran for just under a year. Set to close in June 2020, Beetlejuice ended up closing early, in March 2020, amid the pandemic.

While Broadway was shut down, though, the Beetlejuice cast and creative team took to social media to keep promoting the show, holding multiple virtual events — costume contests, virtual stagedoors, and more. The fan response was so overwhelming that Beetlejuice came back in April 2022. The Music Man had moved into its old venue, the Winter Garden Theatre, so Beetlejuice is now at the Marquis Theatre, with all its spectacular sets and effects intact (yes, including the massive sandworm). Many original cast members returned with the show, including Brightman, Kerry Butler as Barbara Maitland, and Leslie Kritzer as Delia Schlimmer.

Beetlejuice's first NYC run marked the Broadway debuts of Scott Brown and Anthony King. Neither are new to theatre, though: Brown is a former theatre critic for New York magazine, and King is the former artistic director of the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. Their Beetlejuice collaborator, composer/lyricist Eddie Perfect, had just debuted on Broadway with King Kong in November 2018, making Beetlejuice his second show in one Broadway season.

Perfect began writing songs for Beetlejuice in 2014, and a companion album to the show's cast recording, Beetlejuice: The Demos The Demos The Demos, features a ton of songs that didn't make it into the final cut of Beetlejuice on Broadway. Alex Timbers, who also helmed the Tony-winning Best Musical Moulin Rouge! The Musical, has also been attached to Beetlejuice since the beginning, for more than 10 years.

What to Watch For

• The Beetlejuice set contains homages to Tim Burton. The gravestones in the opening scene all bear the names of other Burton film characters, and they sit on hills sculpted to resemble the Claymation animation style of The Nightmare Before Christmas.
• Beetlejuice also contains references to Golden Age Broadway musicals like Hello, Dolly! and Brigadoon. Keep your ear out for them!
• Brightman, and the other actors that play Beetlejuice, use a special vocal technique called ventricular fold phonation. It lets them sing and speak in the character's gravelly voice for long periods of time without damaging their vocal cords.
• The title character’s name is actually spelled Betelgeuse after the star in the Orion constellation, but for advertising purposes for the original film, Beetlejuice was spelled phonetically.
• The Beetlejuice musical gained lots of its fans by going viral on social media. It all started when the cast posted videos from backstage, doing trendy TikTok dances in costume.
• Multiple stars of the original Beetlejuice movie have come to see the show, including Geena Davis (who played Barbara) and Catherine O'Hara (who played Delia). They both loved it!