Eddie’s Perfect Beetlejuice

Imagine starring in the musical you composed the songs for, that made it to Broadway and scored you a Tony nomination, in your hometown.  Eddie Perfect is living that dream with the Australian Premiere of Beetlejuice in Melbourne. David Spicer spoke to singer/actor/composer.

Bright as a button, Eddie Perfect loves talking about musicals and I have been lucky enough to interview him about his big hit Beetlejuice on the phone from Broadway, in a café in New York and on this occasion inside the Sydney Opera House.

It was Eddie’s night off from starring in Opera Australia’s Candide and what good fortune to run into him in the foyer waiting to see an opera.  

Being Eddie Perfect’s agent for the play The Beast, and Shane Warne the Musical (and a pushy retired ABC journalist to boot), how could I resist the opportunity to ask him a few quick questions about his huge new role, before the bells ushered us into the Joan Sutherland Theatre. 

At that point, rehearsals were about to commence for Beetlejuice and the original creatives from Broadway weren’t yet in Melbourne.

“I am going to have to reinvent the relationship between myself and the director. From being people sitting there (as a composer/lyricist) talking about the actors, now I’m going to be the actor,” Eddie told me. 

“So, I don't really know what that dynamic will be like, but it's exciting. Nobody in New York knows the performing side of my life. And now they're all flying over here to put the show up, with the guy that used to be the composer playing the role of Beetlejuice. It’s like a big novelty for them (for me). It’s terrifying.”

The story of Beetlejuice, based on the movie, is about a recently deceased couple who hire a ghost to scare away the new owners of their house. 

Will any aspect of the production be adjusted for local audiences?

“It is set America, it's just more about being aware of jokes that are so culturally pertinent to America that they don't play in Australia and making sure we take care of them so that they make more sense. But the location is in America.”

One bit of Aussie lingo did make it to Broadway. In a previous interview he confided with me about one line he loved.  

“Beetlejuice says, ‘right now you couldn’t frighten a fly or scare a seagull off a fry.’  Everyone goes why would a seagull eat a fry?  A seagull on a chip is the most Australian thing ever. That lyric is staying!”

But could he tweak the show now if we wanted?

“That is a political minefield. I’d have to run any changes by the book writers. Every now and then people are like, ‘Oh, you should say this or say that’. You know, I didn't write the script. I just wrote the songs and the only thing I could get away with is changing the lyrics.

“But also, the way it's rolled out all over the world has been very much about grafting the comedy onto the cast that you have, and making it work for them. There's nothing worse than people trying to be funny like other people. So, we hire funny people who were right on the role and let them do it.”

Now that he’s the funny person hired, expect to see Perfect’s big bold personality reflected in the performance.

“It's a fun role. Like, I've been loving learning it while I'm doing Candide here. Beetlejuice - this is a weird comparison. He's a bit like Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof. He's a philosophical guy. He talks to the audience. He's like, why can't I get a break?”

“He wants to be on the inside, living life, being a part of things. And even though he's a millennia old demon, who's a manipulator and a liar, you can't help but empathize with him. He's just this lonely, invisible dude. Aren't we all? 

So, when he looks at the script does he see it through the fresh eyes of an actor or the eyes of the co-creator?

“Totally fresh,” was his immediate response. “There is so much extreme material to play. It is limitless and boundless.”

The story about how Perfect got the Beetlejuice gig is worth re-telling.

In 2019 I spoke to him at the Winter Garden Theatre, Broadway, as the show was about to open. 

“I have never been in such a glorious creative position,” he told me on the phone, on a dinner break from a rehearsal.

“I’ve been working on Beetlejuice for four years now. It is right up my alley. It is funny. It is dark. It is absurd. It walks a funny and dangerous line. It has a lot of heart and guts and soul to it.

“We are doing 15-hour days. I start rehearsals with the orchestra in the morning. We come to the theatre in the middle of the day, then we tech until midnight. Seven days a week.”

How did it happen that an unknown Australian composer/writer with a few local credits was commissioned to write the lyrics and music to a Broadway musical adaptation of a Hollywood film, backed by a movie studio? Well … he decided to have a crack!

“My wife said buy a ticket to New York and stick around. I didn’t know anybody in New York, then Tim Minchin introduced me to his theatre writing agent. I gave him a copy of Shane Warne The Musical. He liked it even though he didn’t know anything about cricket.”

But how would he get a big New York writer to work with him?

“I heard about Beetlejuice and asked my agent if I could pitch for it. It had heavy duty Broadway producers who didn’t know my stuff – which was Australian.

“So, I said, ‘What if I wrote two songs for them for free?’ It wouldn’t cost them anything.”

The offer was accepted.

“I looked at the script and wrote a song for (the characters of) Lydia and Beetlejuice. The first songs you write for a musical are the hardest, when all the decisions are made. What do these characters sound like vocally and what is the sonic world of that?

“The Beetlejuice song drove me crazy writing it. It is now the opening number. He cycles through ten different styles of music, like a demented split personality version of Genie and Aladdin. It goes from banjo folk, to swing to dance hall to ska. It is kind of like bonkers.

“Then I wrote a song for Lydia, called ‘Dead Mom’. It is much more like an indie rock tune.

“I didn’t hear anything for a couple of months, then I got a phone call from my agent saying you got the gig!

“I was like, this was insane. I honestly thought I would have to do something Off Broadway, then maybe drag myself into town. So, it was incredible. This is my chance to present my style of composing and lyric writing on Broadway. I have worked harder on this piece than anything in my life.

“I made a promise that no matter what time America wanted to do the phone call in a group conference call, I would be there. I would get up at 4AM and skateboard down to my local park in the dark and sit at the picnic table so that I could talk without waking the kids up.

“I would do meetings as the sun came up or in the middle of the night. I flew back and forth continuously over four years.”

Six months later we caught up for brunch in a restaurant close to the Lincoln Centre in NYC.  

With a mouthful of a salmon bagel, our conversation turned to how close Beetlejuice the Musical came to disaster.

“We opened in Washington DC and got really negative press. One critic hated it. That effected our entire trajectory into Broadway. The review set up a narrative that our show had a great set, but the rest was a corporate piece of shit.”

He grumbles that the musical had genuine comedy but was being stymied by theatrical critical conservatism. Producers of the musical adaptation of the Warner Brothers film went back to the drawing boards. They did exit interviews with members of the Washington audience. Producers learnt that the ‘heart and soul of the show’, the message, was not being picked up by people. They were just seeing chaos.

“So, we went about re-writing the whole thing.”

Eddie rolls his eyes at a story leaked to the press.

“They always throw the writers under the bus. They say things like, the director sat down with the writers saying, ‘I want good songs.’ That was annoying. We were the ones doing the work. The rest are just flapping around.

“We came to New York with no money in the bank and no one talking about the show. Everyone made up their mind that Beetlejuice was dead on arrival. Ninety percent of press was about the set.

“I had a terrifying conversation with my agent. He said if daily ticket sales don’t start going up after the first two weeks, you guys are going to be shut before opening night.”

Eddie says that the first performance at the Winter Garden Theater - in front of family and friends, people with Zimmer Frames and a contingent of what he calls New York’s “biggest douche bags with no sense of humour” - was a disaster.

Next came the first proper paying audience and he was immediately buoyed by a line of people in high spirits queuing around the block.

After the first song the applause went for a full minute.

“We were still unable to enjoy it. We knew this audience reaction does not inoculate you against the angry conservative man with a sea of people around him loving it.

“Opening night was insane. We were so worried and got mixed reviews. The New York Times review was not good, but not King Kong bad.”

Audiences were building, but it was by no means a hit, then something changed. Eddie Perfect left his phone off on the day that Tony Award nominations were announced. When he switched it on, it was going off like Fourth of July fireworks.

The musical scored eight nominations including Best Original Score for Eddie.

“A lot of fancy people (Tony Award voters) then had to see it. Before noone wanted to see us. Word of mouth was building. We got to perform – and rewrite - a song for the Tony Awards. In America people don’t do that. The awards and the cast album changed the narrative from us being a turkey to being something of a cult hit.

“People are really fanatical about it. It is not a giant blockbuster, but it has defied expectations.”

He didn’t win the Tony, but Beetlejuice the Musical went on to have two stints on Broadway, a national tour of the United States and seasons in Japan, Brazil and South Korea.

No doubt Eddie is now doing quite well for himself. As the star of the musical he wrote, there is a nice wage and share of box office. It wasn’t always the case.

In 2019 he told me, “Last year we were pretty broke. We still had a roof over our heads and food, but it was pretty miserable. We couldn’t afford to see anything or eat out.

“We moved to New York. I sold my grand piano. It was like when the rockets fall away at take-off.

“We live in a tiny apartment. This was almost a career killer. I thought, I have failed and will have to move back to Australia.

Times have changed. He’s moved back to Australia and his name is in lights on the Beetlejuice billboard twice.

Beetlejuice opened at the Regent Theatre, Mebourne on May 7, 2025, and closes on September 11.