[music]
[piano]
--I grew up, probably like most people who get into theater grow up listening to
cast recordings. It was Sweeney Todd. It was the Kevin
Kline, Angela Lansbury production of Pirates of Penzance. A lot of Angela
Lansbury going on. And Fiddler on the Roof,
I remember Fiddler on the Roof playing that for the first time and hearing
Tradition for the first time and just never having heard anything like that.
But I didn't know what Broadway was until much later. And then Broadway was
always sort of like Disneyland, you know? A place that seems nice but I sure as hell
am never gonna go there. So, to be here and writing stuff feels a little unreal.
And it's more wonderful and more difficult than I thought it would be.
When I found out about that there was a Beetlejuice script going around, it just
coincided with me first coming to America to try and get work, which was
not going well. I mean, I didn't know I didn't know anyone. I hardly do now. And
my experience of Beetlejuice was from the film and from the cartoon. I grew
up with that cartoon. Black comedy is really in my blood. I love it. I like I
like danger in theatre and I in my native homeland of Australia, I write a
lot of comedy and a lot of dark comedy and a lot of satirical comedy, which is
really almost intrinsically designed to make an audience feel uncomfortable.
Knowing that the Beetlejuice script was going around, I thought, I think you know
think this might be in my wheelhouse but they wouldn't let me pitch on it because
they were like, Who the [bleep] is this dude with a weird name
from Australia and we have no idea. No.
But I said to my agent, Well, what if they let me write a couple of songs for free?
You know, like what's the difference? They're going to cost me
money on time. And if they hate
them, whatever.
I wrote two songs to pitch
on Beetlejuice, and they were Good Thing
for Beetlejuice and Dead Mom.
I have to say it like, we say mum, but it sounds weird
when I say dead Mum. Dead mum. And I wasn't
expecting to get the job so I'm like I'm
gonna swing for the fences with this one. I write
some crazy shit for Beetlejuice. I'm gonna I'm gonna write a song where like
every one of his multiple personalities has its own musical
style. It's gonna go from like ukulele, Kermit the Frog folk into flat out death
metal and back again and swing jazz. And he's gonna use all of these
different sounds to communicate different parts of his personality and
essentially to win over the Maitlands.
--[sings] Hi! I'll be your guide. I'll be your G U I
D E to the other side.
[music]
--[chorus] Ahhh ahhh ahhh
[claps]
--The approach to writing Beetlejuice is very different to writing
Lydia. Lydia, I was like okay I want a song that any angsty, teenage girl and
sit on her bed with the electric guitar plugged into a crappy little 50 watt amp
and play power chords and sing it. It's designed to be like a bedroom
angst song.
[piano]
--[sings] No more playing daddy's game.
I'll go insane if things don't change.
Whatever it takes
to make him say your name,
dead mom.
--The Tony nominations were completely unexpected.
We know our show is like it's a crazy show. I've no idea whether the critics or
voters or any of this stuff that is all new to me anyway,
how any of that stuff works. I was like, I'm just gonna focus on the people that are
in this building. It's a lovely, big you know pat on the back you know. That's all
that's what awards are right? Like we appreciate what you're doing. So, to be
included in a category with these luminaries, it really does blow my mind.
It's just nice. There's just no downside to it. It's lovely.
[MUSIC]