With Halloween only weeks away, it seems fitting that the National Theatre will debut the world premiere musical Beetlejuice, based on Tim Burton’s wildly fun, demented 1988 movie, which helped make Michael Keaton a star and the song “Day O” never heard in the same way again.
Directed by Alex Timbers with an original score by Eddie Perfect and a book by Scott Brown and Emmy Award nominee Anthony King, Beetlejuice stars Alex Brightman (School of Rock), Sophia Anne Caruso, Rob McClure (Chaplin, Something Rotten!) and Kerry Butler (Mean Girls), who took time to speak with us.
Butler and McClure play Adam and Barbara, the couple who (spoiler alert!) die and find themselves haunting the country home they purchased (played by Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin in the movie).
Fans, Butler explains, will be pleased with the show, as it ventures even deeper into the characters than the movie, and goes on a new journey, without losing any of Beetlejuice fanatics’ favorite moments from the film.
“But you definitely don’t need to know the movie to get on board with this show; it’s probably even more exciting if you don’t,” she says. “It’s very magical, raunchy and the scariest thing I have ever done. But I feel like people will be surprised at how emotionally attached they will become to the show.”
Beetlejuice will run Oct. 14 through Nov. 18, then head to Broadway’s Winter Garden Theatre in March. A year earlier, another show Butler was in, Mean Girls, played the National for a five-week run, before making its way to the Great White Way, where it has become a smash hit.
She played three roles—Mrs. Heron, Mrs. George and Ms. Norbury—two of the mean girls’ moms and the high school’s popular calculus teacher.
The rarity of back-to-back new productions going from D.C. to Broadway is not lost on her and the Broadway vet is always thrilled to be part of a world premiere.
“It’s really exciting to be involved with something new, to be that creative and have that input, and a lot of times they will tailor the part to your strengths,” Butler says. “But it’s also scary because once you sign on, you don’t know what the finished project will be. For example, my song from Mean Girls was cut by the time we went to Broadway, so you never know what the role will become.”
Having been in D.C. only a year ago, Beetlejuice has been something of a homecoming for Butler.
“I have a whole list of stuff I want to do this time that I wasn’t able to do and it’s really nice being back,” she says. “I’m seeing a lot of the same people at the theater who worked on Mean Girls, and there’s just a comfort level that is always great to have.”
With an unmatched combination of humor, beauty, and a belting voice that Broadway divas would die for, it’s no surprise that Butler is much in demand for new shows and has been part of two of the most buzzed about musicals of late.
What is surprising is that when she first started in the business, things did not come easy.
“I got rejected a lot growing up and a lot of people told me I would never make it—casting directors, agents, my college—but I always believed that I would,” she says. “It just made me work harder and I still work on my craft, taking acting lessons and working hard at it.”
Butler seems to have a penchant for musicals based on movies. Her early Broadway roles were in Les Misérables, Blood Brothers and Beauty and the Beast, but starting in 2002, she was in a string of successful runs based on popular films. First it was her standout performance as Penny Pingleton in Hairspray, and this was followed by Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors, Kira in Xanadu, Brenda in Catch Me if You Can, and of course, her triple threat of roles in Mean Girls.
“Sometimes to sell a show, if it was a box office hit in the movies, it can be almost critic-proof,” Butler theorizes on why so many musicals are based on popular films. “Not always, but you do see that sometimes. People love the movie so much, they are just happy to see it put on stage.”
She has been involved with Beetlejuice since its first reading more than three years, even while working on Mean Girls. In fact, while she was rehearsing the latter, twice she had to pull double duty and do both on the same day.
“I knew Beetlejuice was going to be something special from that first reading,” she says. “There are so many shows where I have to put something on to become another character, but this feels like it was written for me, much in the same way Hairspray felt the part was written for me, though it wasn’t. It’s one of my favorites.”
Over the course of more than a year with Mean Girls, Butler prides herself with never missing a performance.
“I’m very old-school. The actors who I grew up with as role models always felt the show should go on,” she says. “I’ve had such a long career that it kills me if I had to bow out for a cold and a fan says, ‘I drove all this way to see you in the show and you weren’t there.’ I don’t want to do that to people. If some people are going to a show because I’m in it, I want to be there for them.”
Now that she’s no longer with Mean Girls, Butler admits she misses it—especially the young cast who she grew so close to and served as something of a mentor to. And those following along the Twitter and Instagram feeds of Mean Girls’ actresses (Erika Henningsen, Taylor Louderman, Ashley Park and Kate Rockwell) know they miss her just as much.
“Last Halloween, all the girls dressed up as me from the different shows I’ve been in to surprise me. It was so adorable,” Butler says. “We had 13 Broadway debuts in this cast. A lot of them like to hear my stories and Erika and Ashley both told me how they listened to me a lot growing up and they are all just so sweet to me.”
This Halloween figures to be a bit spookier with Beetlejuice onstage at the National. But its cast are looking forward to the musical’s official opening night in DC this November, and to moving the show into the Winter Garden Theatre in New York next March.
The post Broadway’s Kerry Butler talks about Beetlejuice appeared first on DC Theatre Scene.