Preview: Beetlejuice comes to haunt Canada for the first time

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If you want to get rid of ghosts, you call Ghostbusters, but what do you do if you’re the ghost and you want to get rid of humans? Well, you call Beetlejuice but make sure you call him three times.

Beetlejuice is the titular character played by Michael Keaton in the 1988 Tim Burton film. Made for just $15 million, Beetlejuice grossed $84 million worldwide, making it a box office hit. It spawned an animated TV series and video games and, 40 years later, a film sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice which was released this past September. That film has grossed $455 million, making Beetlejuice the ghost with the most.

In 2019, Beetlejuice became a Broadway musical that, unfortunately, had to close in 2020 because of the pandemic. Like a phoenix, it rose again in 2022 and played for another full year. The first touring production of Beetlejuice was launched in December 2022 and has been crisscrossing the United States ever since. Calgary and Edmonton mark its first foray into Canada with Beetlejuice running at the Jubilee Auditorium in Calgary on Jan. 7 to 12 and in Edmonton on Jan. 14 to 19.

Stepping into Beetlejuice’s trademark striped afterlife attire is Maritimer Justin Collette, who is no stranger to Alberta.

“From the time I was in high school in New Brunswick, I was a member of the Canadian Improv Games. It’s like the Loose Moose in Calgary, and I met so many alumni of the Loose Moose. I attended tournaments in Calgary, and performed in comedy clubs in Calgary a decade ago,” says Collette. He recalled that after one tournament, “a couple of friends and I bought an old Chev Malibu for $2,000 and set up our own Cross Canada Improv Tour. In just three weeks we travelled from Halifax to Victoria and back to Halifax.”

Collette eventually relocated to Toronto, became part of the improv scene there, and began auditioning for musicals and plays. In 2017, he was cast in the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical School of Rock for a two-year run on Broadway.

“During the run of School of Rock, I relocated to New York and have been living there ever since. I booked the Beetlejuice tour in December of 2022. We rehearsed in New York, did one show in Kentucky to see if it worked, and then officially began our tour with a three-week run in San Francisco. I’ve been with the tour ever since, and I’ve seen most of the U.S..”

Collette says playing this iconic character is not as daunting as it may seem.

“Initially, you get a lot of goodwill from your audiences. They love this character and want to have a good time with him. After about 10 minutes, they begin comparing you to Michael Keaton, and that’s when you really have to work to keep them with you.

“The tricky thing with Beetlejuice is he’s actually a pretty nasty character. He’s all animal desire. He’s very instinctual. He has some pretty creepy appetites he wants to feed. This could make him distasteful so, as an actor, you have to add some vulnerability. You have to make the audience feel comfortable watching him do the stuff he does. For me, that comes naturally because I feel vulnerable up there on stage.”

Collette has no intention of retiring his stripes and wild makeup any time soon because he’s having so much fun seeing how people in different cities react to Beetlejuice. “It always seems like a new show in each new city, because the audiences bring their own vibes. Mind you, we bring the wild with us, and that encourages audiences to have a truly fun time. Wherever we go, people arrive at the theatres in costume, ready to rock with us.

“For the past three years, we’ve been playing to packed houses. I can hardly wait to see how Canadians react.”