Displaying items by tag: Beetlejuice

Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice… Beetlejuice! You’ve summoned him once again, Chicago— BEETLEJUICE is back for another hauntingly hilarious run! The edgy and irreverent Broadway smash hit will haunt the Cadillac Palace Theatre for a strictly limited engagement today through March 16, 2025. Individual tickets ($47.50-157.50) and a select number of premium tickets are on sale now and may be purchased at BroadwayInChicago.com. Group orders of 10+ are also available by calling (312) 977-1710 or by emailing This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Patrons can also participate in a digital lottery for a chance to purchase $25 tickets for each performance. A limited number of day-of-show, in person $49 Rush tickets will also be available for all performances. Click here for more information.

Based on Tim Burton’s dearly beloved film, this hilarious musical tells the story of Lydia Deetz, a strange and unusual teenager whose whole life changes when she meets a recently deceased couple and a demon with a thing for stripes. With an irreverent book, an astonishing set, and a score that’s out of this Netherworld, BEETLEJUICE is “SCREAMINGLY GOOD FUN!” (Variety). And under its uproarious surface (six feet under, to be exact), it’s a remarkably touching show about family, love, and making the most of every Day-O!

BEETLEJUICE is directed by Tony Award® winner Alex Timbers (Moulin Rouge!, Director of Warner Bros. forthcoming TOTO, the animated musical film adaptation of Michael Morpurgo and Emma Chichester Clark’s 2017 book) with an original score by Tony Award nominee Eddie Perfect (King Kong); a book by Tony Award nominee Scott Brown (“Castle Rock”) and Tony and Emmy Award® nominee Anthony King (“Robbie”); music supervision, orchestrations and incidental music by Kris Kukul (Joan of Arc: Into the Fire); and choreography by Connor Gallagher (The Robber Bridegroom).

BEETLEJUICE features scenic design by three-time Tony Award nominee David Korins (Hamilton); costume design by six-time Tony Award winner William Ivey Long (The Producers); lighting design by Tony Award winner Kenneth Posner (Kinky Boots); sound design by Tony Award winner Peter Hylenski (Moulin Rouge!); projection design by Tony Award nominee and Drama Desk Award winner Peter Nigrini (Dear Evan Hansen); puppet design by Drama Desk Award winner Michael Curry (The Lion King); special effects design by Jeremy Chernick (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child), hair and wig design by Drama Desk Award nominee Charles G. LaPointe; make-up design by Joe Dulude II; associate director is Catie Davis and associate choreographer is Michael Fatica; casting by The Telsey Office.

BEETLEJUICE Producers include Warner Bros, Theatre Ventures, Langley Park Productions and NETworks Presentations.

BEETLEJUICE opened at Broadway’s Winter Garden Theatre on Thursday, April 25, 2019, presented by Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures (Mark Kaufman) and Langley Park Productions (Kevin McCormick), and won the Drama Desk Award and Outer Critics Circle Award for David Korins’ scenic design and was nominated for eight Tony Awards including Best New Musical. BEETLEJUICE had a history making run on Broadway - following the release of the musical’s original Broadway cast recording and Tony Awards appearance, the box office exploded, making it the surprise hit of the 2018/2019 season. BEETLEJUICE’s Tony Awards performance has gone on to be the most watched musical number from the broadcast with over 3,921,530 views. BEETLEJUICE became a sensation with fans everywhere including on TikTok, which lead to an additional burst of ticket sales from a new audience for Broadway, making the musical one of the top grossing shows on Broadway, going on to break the Winter Garden box office record. The smash hit musical BEETLEJUICE played 366 performances at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway before being shuttered with the rest of Broadway on March 12, 2020. BEETLEJUICE returned triumphantly to Broadway with performances on April 8, 2022, at the Marquis Theatre where it continued to haunt Broadway through January 8, 2023.

GHOSTLIGHT RECORDS and WARNER RECORDS released BEETLEJUICE – ORIGINAL BROADWAY CAST RECORDING for digital download, streaming and on CD. The album is produced by Tony Award winner Matt Stine, Tony Award winner Alex Timbers, Tony nominee Eddie Perfect and three-time Grammy Award winner Kurt Deutsch and has surpassed 250 million streams in the United States and 760 million streams globally. These landmark numbers continue the remarkable success of the album, reaching the list of top 10 most streamed OBCRs of the previous decade. The show’s songs have placed in Spotify’s “Viral 50” charts in 13 different countries. In addition, “Say My Name,” one of the show’s breakout showstoppers, was chosen as Amazon’s “Alexa Song of the Day” in 2019. The incredible growth is partly a result of user-generated content on TikTok, where songs from the album have been used in over one million videos.

BEETLEJUICE is based on the 1988 Academy Award®-winning Geffen Company motion picture presented by Warner Bros. and directed by Tim Burton. The smash hit comedy starred Michael Keaton, Alec Baldwin, Geena Davis, Jeffrey Jones, Catherine O’Hara and Winona Ryder with story by Michael McDowell and Larry Wilson.

Like BEETLEJUICE on Facebook at Facebook.com/BeetlejuiceBway/.
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For more information, visit www.BeetlejuiceBroadway.com.

PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE
Tuesday, March 11 at 7:00 p.m.                  Saturday, March 15 at 2:00 p.m.
Wednesday, March 12 at 7:00 p.m.           Saturday, March 15 at 7:30 p.m.
Thursday, March 13 at 7:00 p.m.                Sunday, March 16 at 1:00 p.m.
Friday, March 14 at 7:30 p.m.                      Sunday, March 16 at 6:30 p.m.

ABOUT BROADWAY IN CHICAGO
Broadway In Chicago was created in July 2000 and over the past 25 years has grown to be one of the largest commercial touring homes in the country. A Nederlander Presentation, Broadway In Chicago lights up the Chicago Theatre District entertaining up to 1.7 million people annually in five theatres. Broadway In Chicago presents a full range of entertainment, including musicals and plays, on the stages of five of the finest theatres in Chicago’s Loop including the Cadillac Palace Theatre, CIBC Theatre, James M. Nederlander Theatre, and just off the Magnificent Mile, the Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place and presenting Broadway shows at The Auditorium.
 

For more information, visit www.broadwayinchicago.com.
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For so many children of the ‘80s, the revisiting and repurposing of our childhoods’ intellectual and emotional property is comforting. Maybe I’m more cynical, but so many of pop culture’s attempts to cash in on my nostalgia don’t do much for me. And so, when Tim Burton’s beloved tale of a recently deceased married couple and their debauched and equally dead ghostly exterminator became a Broadway musical, I was unsure about yet another attempt to take my fond memories and put them on the stage.

All that to say, I went into the Auditorium Theatre for Broadway on Chicago’s current production of Beetlejuice the Musical. The Musical.The Musical. a skeptic. And I came out smiling like I haven’t smiled in years.

For real, this is the most enjoyable production I’ve seen since before the pandemic.

It began with the set, which won me over immediately. I’ve found that shows put on in the Auditorium face the challenge of living up to such a large, looming, living house as Adler and Sullivan’s 19^th-century masterpiece. Sometimes it can overshadow shows. Sometimes it can swallow them up. Sometimes it’s just too much, itself. Not in this case. The set, designed by David Korins, already faced the challenge of living up to the zany and iconic look of the film, straight from inside Tim Burton’s head. But the set does live up to Burton’s vision—from the BETELGEUSE sign and spooky lighting—designed by Kenneth Posner—that greets you to the ever-changing innards of the soon-to-be-haunted house that hosts the show, as do the costumes (by William Ivey Long), the projections (by Peter Nigrini), and especially the puppets (by Michael Curry). This production not only recreates the brilliance of Burton’s movie, but it also recreates the BIGNESS of it. This Beetlejuice is a real spectacle, as it ought to be.

The music, too, of this 21^st-century reimagining of 20^th-century classic totally works. Going in, I knew the songs would be good, as my daughters have played the original Broadway soundtrack around the house since it came out in 2018. With words and music by Eddie Perfect, these are really good songs. And the orchestra, produced and supervised by Matt Stine and Kris Kukul and directed by Andy Grobengieser and Julia Sunay, is really tight throughout, something as a musician myself I notice and appreciate.

Yes, if the wonderful scenic and sonic experience I had at Beetlejuice was all I had to talk about, it still might rank up there with the shows I’ve most enjoyed. But I haven’t even gotten to the show’s cast yet. And—as they would be filling roles first played by none other than Michael Keaton, Catherine O’Hara, Geena Davis, Alec Baldwin, and Winona Ryder—that was my main area of concern. Could anyone live up to those names and those performances?

This cast does.

Justin Collette takes on the title role with ghoulish glee. While Collette nails the gravelly voice of the original, he doesn’t try to perfectly recreate the grubbiness of Keaton’s spectral chiseler. Collette’s Beetlejuice is a bit more modern, a bit more fun—more carnival barker or social media attention hound than used car salesman—while every bit as irreverent and foul-mouthed (and actually Rated R to the 1988 PG-rated poltergeist). And Collette can sing. He’s on all night long—all over the stage, interacting with the audience like a standup comic, dancing with the ensemble, shaking a leg, breaking off an arm, evading a sandworm, holding a minute-long note—without breaking a sweat. I was out of breath just watching him, but Collette proved himself a real pro.

Also, a real pro—in her professional debut—is Isabella Esler as poor little broken-hearted gothic girl, Lydia Deetz. Now, again, I’m a 1980s kid. And Winona Ryder will always be everything to me—especially as the original Lydia. In fact, in the clips I’d seen of other performances from other productions of Beetlejuice, Lydia was the one who could never live up to the original. But Esler does that. She not only keeps up with an ever-changing set and never-tiring ensemble, but she also leads them. Confident, coordinated, and with a face so expressive it seems to pop right off the Auditorium’s giant stage and right into the seats, Esler was every bit the star of the show as Beetlejuice. And like Collette, Esler can also really sing—always finding another gear and a higher or more emotionally compelling note—sing like someone who’s been doing this for decades.

The rest of this cast, too, are professionals, or even better than the great professionals I’ve come to expect in such productions. Baldwin and Davis were (and still are) reliable, benignly attractive icons in the film. But as recently deceased husband and wife onstage, Megan McGinnis and Will Burton play up the boring and benign, which only highlights how extraordinarily talented the two are. They sing, they dance, they act as ensemble side pieces when needed, but carry whole scenes themselves.

While those two expand on the film’s characteristics, the two other principal characters are much different, and for the better in this case. The book—by Scott Brown and Anthony King—takes license throughout, even referring to the fact that this isn’t the Beetlejuice many old fans like me might be expecting. Because of the big plot changes, the roles of Lydia’s parents completely change. Instead of sleezy Jeffrey Jones’ standard 80s sleaze he brought to this or other film classics, Jesse Sharp’s Charles Deetz is someone you can—or come to—root for. And as Catherine O’Hara (always the perfect film mom from that era) is inimitable, the show doesn’t even try. Kate Marilley’s Delia Deetz is a completely different character than O’Hara’s, and Marilley is a complete hoot—maybe the most fun physical comedian on a stage that’s full of them during this production.

So, yes, this production, wonderfully directed by Alex Timbers, not only won over this old, pessimistic grump (and completely charmed the audience, regardless of age), it wowed me. From the sights to the sounds to the stars on the Auditorium Theatre stage, Broadway in Chicago’s current production of Beetlejuice—running now through November 19—is an event you do not want to miss.