Justin Collette Is Dying To Bring BEETLEJUICE Back To Broadway

Say it three times — or for three years — and he’s back in New York. The fan-favorite musical Beetlejuice is making its way back to Broadway after a successful touring production, and its star Justin Collette is coming with it. 

Collette, who has played the title role in the show on tour for three years, sat down with Theatrely to talk about what he’s learned on the road and returning to Broadway for Halloween season. 

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. 

Theatrely: How has your summer been? 

It's been wild. I lived in Toronto for 5-6, years on and off, and did a lot of work there. For our tour to be in Toronto for seven weeks, we've never been anywhere for that long. Not even close. The longest stop we have before then was three weeks, and we only did three of those, and all in the first year. To end off the tour with two months in that city, surrounded by everyone I've ever known was so surreal. Then we did a few stops after that — Cleveland, Detroit, and Philly — which were great. It was great to go back to those cities too. They were the first couple stops on the tour. It's been a very nostalgic summer, a very like, reaping what you sow, kind of thing. But also so, so tired. 

All the traveling, I give you credit. 

It was a crazy thing to do. I think no one knew it was gonna last this long. I think we all just were like, “yeah, we'll keep going,” and here we are. It's crazy. 

Refresh me. How long have you been with the show? How did this journey kind of start for you? 

I think my first in-person audition was on Halloween 2021. I didn't hear anything, really, for months, and I went back in in like, April of ‘22. I had the job in July of ‘22, we started rehearsing October ‘22 and our first show was in Paducah, Kentucky, in November of 2022 so it's been almost three years of straight touring doing this show, playing a deranged carnival barker.

How does it feel to be bringing this to Broadway after all this time?

It's so great to go back to Broadway, and for so many people in our show it's their debut, and for a lot of them, it's a lifelong dream. So there’s such a different energy in the building than there has been the entire time we've been touring. There's such an excited energy that's present now that wasn't there before. So that has changed the dynamic in the building in a really fun way. It's really animated a lot of corpses. A lot of people that are really tired are now just like so excited and animated to keep going, not that people don't love the show or doing the show. The show has so many great fans, and everybody really gives it all every night. The relentless nature of this tour schedule has been hard to maintain, but I can’t believe I'm going back to New York. 

I can't wait to go back to that city. It's my favorite city in the world. I can't believe I get to do it at my favorite time to be on Broadway, which is like October, November, December. Are you kidding me? Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas in New York City. Come on. So fun. And it feels like people are excited to go see this show. And that is that feels, that feels really good, too awesome. 

On the Halloween element, this show on Halloween sounds pretty electric. What are you looking forward to about that? 

It feels like we've just been setting the table for the last three years for this event. We've just been, like, stoking the appetite of the entire country, and now it feels like we're going to give them Beetlejuice on Halloween in New York City, after all this. It just feels like a party. It’s also so rare to go to Broadway with no one's looking for, I don't even think we're Tony eligible. We're not looking to recoup. It’s not a new show we have to sell people on. It's such an odd experience coming to Broadway with the thing that you've worked on and crowd researched for three years, especially a comedy. You really don't get that kind of information ever as an actor or a comedian before doing something on Broadway like this. It feels like serving that up at Halloween is just a gift to fans of this show, and is going to be an absolute party. I think we're all just going to celebrate this for three months. 

Over the years, you've gotten to really sit with this character. How do you think your Say it three times — or for three years — and he’s back in New York. The fan-favorite musical Beetlejuice is making its way back to Broadway after a successful touring production, and its star Justin Collette is coming with it. 

Collette, who has played the title role in the show on tour for three years, sat down with Theatrely to talk about what he’s learned on the road and returning to Broadway for Halloween season.  has evolved while you've been doing the tour?

It feels like this was the training montage before the fight with the final boss. I'm in an action movie right now, whoever my call to action was, they saw some raw talent in me. I went out, I did my missions. I got beaten up a few times. And then I went around the country and I would go in and take other performances from people when I could too. I not only grew as an artist, but as a person. I've always known exactly how I wanted to play this character, and I'm closer now to doing that correctly than I've ever been, and probably than I ever will be. I think at this point it's like, truly psychotic the things that I'm trying to concoct. There were things I wanted to do in the first year that either couldn't physically do, or didn't really understand comedically how to do, or didn't know the character well enough. But like, now this is the show that I imagined being able to do at the start. It required, apparently, like a three year pressure cooker situation.

Is there anything new, whether it be with your company or new to the show that Broadway audiences can expect from this run? 

I think that our cast brings a totally different vibe than the previous iterations of this show. I know that they're talking about some changes to the show between even our tour version and going to Broadway. That's what you get with Alex Timbers and these beautiful writers and our music, Eddie Perfect and Anthony and Scott. I love working with them, because I think we're the same kind of never ending tinkerer, perfectionist people. They will rewrite scenes, even at this point, if they think they're not working anymore. They’ll change stuff in the show. They change orchestrations. This show is living and breathing, despite it being about so much death. Everybody wants to constantly put the version of the show that is to the top of our current intelligences, and not try to mirror something that happened six years ago or eight years ago. 

I can't get into specifics, but the show is always changing, and I know that there are some specific narrative, musical, and theatrical choices that will be made for this run. 

When you bring this to Broadway, what are you hoping that young audiences will take away when they come to see the show?

I'm hoping they'll take away that Broadway is for them — that Broadway is like a musical theatre is a convention, and not a genre. Our show conventionally does all the things that musicals do, but I don't think it sounds like a traditional musical. I think the convention of it and the genre of it get conflated a lot. Like a musical has to sound like this, has to be narratively like this, has to have conventional singing, has to have all these things and like they don't. The ones that break those molds, like Hamilton or like our show, because we're the same in terms of popularity, are the ones that are succeeding and the ones that are drawing in a younger audience. I hope they leave feeling inspired and like that could be them, if they work hard. 

When you reflect back on this moment, bringing this to Broadway after all this time, five, 10, 20 years from now, what do you hope that you'll remember?

I really hope I'll be proud of it and I'll feel the magnitude of it. I feel like people always ask me about the impact of what the show is and what we've done. We just had our 2,000,000th person see the show a couple weeks ago, and that's insane for a show that's only been going for three years. I say all these things, but I'm in the middle of all of this, and it really is hard to evaluate, the meaning of a moment when you're in the middle of it. I hope that in 25 years, I'm proud of what I did, and I don't look back thinking I could have done anything better, and that I appreciate it for what it is.

You mentioned earlier on the road trying to see lots of things when you have some time off, I'm curious if you get a day off, is there anything on or off Broadway this upcoming season that you're looking forward to seeing? 

I have some friends that are in the Queen of Versailles that I heard is a really great show. I'm excited to check that out. I still haven't seen Harry Potter yet, and I want to go see it, especially Tom Felton. I mean, that's cool as hell. I never have a bad time in a Broadway show. I'm going to go see whatever I can, whenever I can, and hope that somebody has some schedules that are different from ours, so we can go check it out. 

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