‘Beetlejuice’ Heads to Brisbane: Michael Cassel and Eddie Perfect on Bringing Broadway’s Wildest Musical Down Under

There’s a long memory behind the mayhem.

“We started talking about bringing Beetlejuice to Australia back in 2019,” producer Michael Cassel tells a Brisbane audience, reflecting on a journey that has taken years to materialise. “A regular saying in our office is that good things come to those who wait. So we’ve waited an incredibly long time to finally be able to share this with Brisbane audiences.”

Now, the wait is over. The anarchic, visually explosive musical — based on Beetlejuice — is set to open at Brisbane’s Lyric Theatre from June 7, following a global run that has spanned Broadway, the U.S., Melbourne and even Abu Dhabi. For Cassel, Brisbane represents both a reset and a relaunch.

“Having been on a break with the show for about six months, we get to bring the whole company together here,” he says. “It’s a very exciting moment for us — a mini rehearsal period before we start performances and a chance to reintroduce the show with fresh energy.”

At the heart of that energy is Eddie Perfect — the Australian writer who transformed a cult film into a Tony-nominated musical phenomenon. Cassel calls him “the genius behind the music and lyrics,” noting that the score earned eight Tony nominations, including Best Original Score.

Perfect, however, is quick to deflate any myth-making.

“I just turn up and try not to break anything,” he jokes, before launching into a reflection on what makes Beetlejuice tick. “It’s such a wild character and such a wild world. There’s always a bit of latitude in the role to make it your own — to attach it to the city it’s in.”

That flexibility has been key to the show’s international success. When Perfect himself stepped into the title role during the Melbourne run, he discovered just how demanding that freedom could be.

“It was like working as a waiter and then suddenly having to cook the meals,” he says. “Same building, very different job. I knew the lyrics better than anyone, but apart from that, there was no advantage.”

The role, he explains, is relentless.

“The first 25 minutes are basically all Beetlejuice. It’s stand-up, it’s vaudeville, it’s driving the scenes — it’s a physical fitness test just to get through it.”

Still, that chaos is precisely the point. Beetlejuice is built on collision: comedy smashing into grief, spectacle crashing into sincerity. And that tension was present from the very beginning of Perfect’s involvement.

“There’s no clear path to Broadway,” he recalls. “I was travelling between Melbourne and New York, just trying to get on that great big writer list in the sky.”

Encouraged by his wife to stop waiting and start showing up, Perfect began taking meetings in New York — often with little more than instinct and persistence.

“I’m not a hustler,” he says. “But I’m very passionate about writing for musicals. So I just turned up.”

When he heard that a Beetlejuice musical was in development, he pushed to be included — and was initially rejected. Undeterred, he took a gamble.

“I said, ‘I’ll just write two songs for free.’ I wanted to get my writing under the nose of a proper Broadway director. I thought the best I could do was prove I could write to an American brief.”

One of those songs became “The Whole Being Dead Thing,” a genre-hopping opener that encapsulates the show’s manic spirit. Another, “Dead Mom,” grounded the story in something far more emotional.

“I was swinging for the fences,” Perfect says. “There’s not a lot of that kind of stuff on Broadway — stitching together a Frankenstein’s monster of genres. But Beetlejuice is such a surprising character, I didn’t want to trap him in one style.”

Three months later, he got the call: he had the job.

What followed was five years of intense development, including a bruising pre-Broadway run in Washington, D.C., that forced the creative team to reassess the show’s balance.

“It was about 90% zany and 10% message,” Perfect admits. “We had to ask ourselves, ‘What are we actually trying to say?’”

The answer lay in the show’s emotional core: grief.

Despite its irreverent tone, Beetlejuice is fundamentally about loss — particularly through the character of Lydia, a teenager grappling with the death of her mother. For Perfect, that theme was deeply personal.

“My wife lost her mother when she was young,” he says. “And grief is not something you just get over. It’s something that stays with you — it changes as you grow.”

Early drafts of the musical flirted with more fantastical resolutions, including a reunion between Lydia and her mother in the afterlife. But the team ultimately rejected that idea.

“You don’t get that in real life,” Perfect says. “Grief is the unanswered question. It’s the lack of closure. If we gave Lydia that reunion, we’d be selling people’s experience down the river.”

Instead, the show embraces ambiguity — and finds hope not in resolution, but in choosing to live.

“The decision for Lydia is to go back to the real world,” he explains. “To make a home with imperfect people and live a life her mother would have wanted. That’s where the celebration comes from.”

It’s a delicate balance — one that audiences have responded to with unexpected fervour. From fan art filling theatre walls to a growing cult following, Beetlejuice has developed a life far beyond the stage.

“Something about the world of the show empowers people to create,” Perfect says. “That’s one of my favourite things — seeing what audiences make of it.”

For Cassel, that connection is exactly why the show belongs in Brisbane.

“This is a wild and unpredictable night at the theatre,” he says. “But it’s also something with real heart. And we can’t wait to share it with as many people as possible.”

After years of waiting, Beetlejuice is finally ready to haunt Brisbane — and, if Perfect has anything to do with it, audiences will be laughing all the way through the afterlife.

Tickets for the Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and Sydney seasons are available via Beetlejuice The Musical Australia.