Eddie Perfect’s Broadway hit Beetlejuice heads home to haunt Australia
By Karl Quinn
Back in 2008, with Shane Warne The Musical – which he wrote and starred in – playing at the Athenaeum, Eddie Perfect used to gaze across Collins Street and imagine one day having his work performed in Australia’s grandest old theatre.
“Wicked was playing at the Regent, and every night people would pull up in the old horse and carriages,” he recalls. “They’re banned now, but it was a real showbiz lesson – some shows are horse-and-carriage productions, and some aren’t.”
Finally, Perfect will have his way, though with more of a hearse-and-carriage offering: The hit Broadway musical Beetlejuice, for which he wrote the music and lyrics, is coming to Australia.
The stage show, based on Tim Burton’s 1988 movie of the same name, will open at the Regent in Melbourne in April 2025, with powerhouse producer Michael Cassel mounting the local production and the show’s original director, Alex Timbers (who also helmed Moulin Rouge), in charge.
“I mean, it’s pretty magical, when you think about it. But I’ve been trying not to think about it because it’s really nerve-wracking,” he says. “I’m excited for something I’ve written to be opening and exclusive to my hometown in the nicest, biggest, plushest, loveliest musical theatre there is. It’s amazing.”
Though it was nominated for eight Tony awards and played for more than two years, Beetlejuice had a mixed response from critics when it opened on Broadway in early 2019. But it resonated with audiences, many of whom turned up to the theatre in costume and sent fan art inspired by the show to the cast and creators.
Eddie Perfect in Melbourne on Monday morning to announce his hit show Beetlejuice will be heading to Australia.Credit: Eddie Jim
The backstage area was adorned with pictures and handwritten lyrics – and with reams of material delivered every day, Perfect says, they soon ran out of wall space. It’s that level of devotion that makes him feel the show hit the spot.
“It’s really great that something I’ve written, that I really feel has my sensibilities and hands all over it, has somehow been welcomed into the big legit commercial theatre space.”
The show was announced by Cassel, Victorian arts minister Steve Dimopoulos, and Perfect on Monday morning, though with production a long way off, there is no word on the cast.
But could Perfect be imagining himself in the role of Betelgeuse (to give him his alternate spelling), the maverick from the realm of the dead who haunts the house into which the grieving Lydia and her family move? Perhaps so.
Alex Brightman and Elizabeth Teeter in the New York production of Beeteljuice.Credit: Matthew Murphy
Noting that he had never done a proper run at the Regent, only ever one-off engagements, Perfect says, “it’s the first time being an actor in that theatre and getting to know the dressing rooms and all that jazz. I think it’s the last theatre in Melbourne that I haven’t performed in, so I’m very excited by that. There’s a lot of personal, full-circle stuff going on.”
When I ask him a little later to confirm that he will appear in the show, though, he demurs.
“No. I’m certainly not saying that,” he says. “It’s about 12 months away from a big casting process, so they want to save all of that for later on. Part of the joy of announcing this early is that people who are interested in throwing their hat in the ring can start thinking about their schedules ahead of time.”
Having been involved in productions in Washington, New York, a touring US version, and South Korean and Japanese versions – with Brazil soon to follow – Perfect knows the show demands a lot of its cast.
“It requires really specific types of performers, people with really great comic chops, people who are super strong singers and movers. The comedy is quite complicated and tricky and weird, actually.”
But would you at least be open to performing in it?
“I don’t know,” he says. “I might keep that one under my hat.”
Contact the author at kquinn@theage.com.au, follow him on Facebook at karlquinnjournalist and on Twitter @karlkwin, and read more of his work here.
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