Eddie Perfect on Beetlejuice Tony Nomination
Eddie Perfect's Blog on the opening night of Beetlejuice and being nominated for a TONY Award. Read the backstory in the May-June edition of Stage Whispers.
Opening night of Beetlejuice was crazy.
We'd had a terrific preview experience; full houses, great word of mouth, folks turning up to the theatre dressed as characters from the movie, lots of pacing at the back of the theatre, a couple got engaged right before the curtain one evening, a kid vomited into a bin during the first act, the usual stuff. We'd generally get to the theatre at midday, rehearse with the cast til dinner break, watch the evening performance and take notes, debrief the show and share our notes/thoughts til maybe 1am or 2am, go home, rewrite, sleep (a bit) get back to the theatre and repeat. It's hard for everyone; probably most for the crew, who do such exceedingly long hours it's wonder they go through the pretence of going home and coming back again (they're at the theatre at 8am). Oh and Alex Timbers, our director. He's like a charming stamina machine that runs on creativity, empathy and salad.
But opening night was kind of a celebration. Unlike Australia, where all the critics come to opening night and review the same performance which appears in the paper(s) a few days later, on Broadway we freeze the show and then there's another five or so press performances (some better shows than others) before opening night. Opening night is more about the fancy pants media; the celebrities and important people, the money, the cameras and carpets and pretending like you know how to do a fucking "boomerang" and "which broadway star would you most like to be haunted by?" type questions and getting photographed in a weird bondage spider-web contraption that no-one bothered to explain; you just got tangled up and copped it.
And then there's the opening night party and right when you've got your first champagne in your hand ready to toast the previous four years of collaboration with a team that have been through thick and thin together, the reviews come out.
Now, I just ignore my phone and enjoy the night. I figure a bad review will still be bad in the morning (and vice-versa). But you can kind of read it in the room. And of course, for all my high horsed "I'm not even LOOKING AT MY PHONE"-ness, you're well aware that others ARE, and now you have to celebrate your epic journey with your collaborators whilst not-knowing something that everyone else knows. So, you know, it's DO-ABLE, but it's super weird.
All this is a way of saying that the whole thing is just DESIGNED to shit on you- at least a little bit- even if the end result is a critical rainbow of ice-cream puppies and you're riding a golden unicorn into the bosom of Radio City Music Hall with Stephen Sondheim in your backpack. You're still BRICKING IT.
All this is a way of saying that things very quickly become about what is good and has meaning FOR YOU, and those things which are so good that they CANNOT BE TAKEN AWAY from you by the New York Times or some anonymously bitter sixty-five year old show-tune-blogger-tragic who has seen A LOT OF SHOWS and can CATEGORICALLY SAY that your writing is THE WORST WRITING THAT HAS EVER BEEN WRIT. I'm talking about holding onto the things you know, the things you make. The things you feel. The things that don't require outside validation. So to that end I wanted to tell you something about opening night that was really sweet (I know, I know, can you believe I'm just starting this fucking story NOW??? WHAT IS THIS???)
So we're in Act 2 of Beetlejuice, opening night. Lucy and Kitty and Charlotte are there with me. I've taken my daughters to one rehearsal in New 42 rehearsal rooms and I brought them to one night of tech (my girls are demons for tech. They can't get enough of it). This is really just to qualify that although my girls know a good deal of the score, they don't know the new stuff I wrote post-Washington DC. So I've got Charlotte on my lap, and she's really into the show. If you're a writer, and you've got kids, you'll know that it's pretty much EVERYTHING to be able to share your work with your kids. And we get to the Netherworld for Lydia's 11 o'clock number and I start to hear this sound. It sounds like an echo. And the tech-frenzied part of my brain starts to think there's been a sound malfunction and either another actor's mic has been left up and they're singing along, or something super weird has gone on with a processor and they're ghosting Sophia's voice with a slight delay. And then I realise it's Charlotte. She's on my lap and she's singing. And I mean SINGING. She's not holding back. She's really belting it out. Not to brag, but perfectly in tune and right in the centre of the melody. And of course the middle-class politeness in me instinctively wants to shoosh her... but I was like, FUCK IT. It's our opening night, my daughter's into the show, she's singing the song, let her sing. So she did. No-one else shooshed her either, so she sailed through the chorus "I don't know which way's home... oh... I don't know which way's home... oh..."
And it was kind of everything. She was doing what we all do (secretly or not) when we listen to and love musicals... she was Lydia for a moment.
I don't know if you think that's a really lame thing to enjoy, but it made EVERYTHING about making Beetlejuice feel fine to me. I made something, and my daughter loved it, remembered it, and sang it. And yes, deep down in the not-so-noble part of my personality I was also like "See? A Hummable FUCKING MELODY"... but mostly it was just sharing music and theatre with my kid. I was literally like "if that's all there is, I'll bloody well take it. It's enough". You know?
And so the reviews were mixed and the raves were ravey and the pricks were pricks and the show is a roller-coaster and not everyone loves a roller-coaster but it doesn't mean that roller-coasters aren't good and we got kicked and hugged and blah blah blah, bullshit bullshit bullshit... all the stuff of making a show and then (hopefully) onto the next.
Oh, but then yesterday we got nominated for eight Tony Awards and everything shifted. Just like that. But (and don't tell Tony this) nothing is as good as your seven year old daughter sitting on your lap, belting out the song you wrote in the middle of the Wintergarden Theatre on Broadway.
I can't thank you enough for your wonderful messages of congrats and celebration over these nominations. It was truly wonderful. It still is! I read each and every one of them, and I'm so grateful that it means not only great things for our show, but a chance for those who've been in my corner and invested their time and faith in me to have some recognition and validation for risking their reps (and considerable budgets) on an unknown Australian. But just being here, making Beetlejuice, a part of the conversation, laughing our arses off... that's winning. I can't wait to write the next thing, and I'm a very lucky person to have the support of all of you here. Go Australia. Go Melbourne. And Go BEETLEJUICE!
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