What brought “Beetlejuice: The Musical” back from the land of the dead?
The Broadway adaptation of the 1988 comedy-horror movie starring Michael Keaton as “the ghost with the most” opened to mixed reviews in 2019, ran for a year, and was killed by the COVID-19 shutdown of all live theater in 2020. It reopened in 2022 and ran for nine months before closing, not really a flop but far from a smash hit.
But the fan base was in place. Skewing Gen Z and Millennial, they took to TikTok with lip syncs to the show’s songs that went viral. And when the national touring company launched in December 2022, they started showing up in cosplay dressed as characters in the show and, again, on TikTok.
One of the only performers to take the entire bumpy ride, from pre-Broadway tryouts to next week’s sold-out appearance at the Fox Theatre, is former Atlantan and Cobb County Pebblebrook High School grad Ryan Breslin.
Credit: Courtesy of Ryan Breslin
Credit: Courtesy of Ryan Breslin
“There’s something about the ‘Beetlejuice’ fans. The fan base is like no other,” says Breslin. “People make their costumes to come see the show and it’s amazing to see people dressed up as Beetlejuice and Lydia, and as some of these characters that are not even in the movie, that are like deep cuts in our show. They create their own fan fiction as well.”
Some came first because of the Tim Burton movie, which has achieved cult status, but many favor the musical adaptation, which makes some substantial changes. In the film, the title character doesn’t appear for almost 45 minutes, when he is summoned from the underworld and starts sowing chaos. In the musical, he is the audience’s guide, breaking the fourth wall to crack wise and move the narrative along, an undead version of the emcee from “Cabaret.”
Breslin is a “swing” (playing multiple small roles) and member of the ensemble, plus dance captain for the touring show. The latter means he teaches new cast members the dance steps and makes sure that all of the choreography is in sync and safe (there are a lot of lifts). It’s a step on the road to becoming a choreographer himself.
Breslin, 34, was born in Kennesaw. In middle school, he and his friend Will Burton heard about Pebblebrook’s School of the Arts magnet program and auditioned for it together.
“That’s where I fell in love with doing theater,” he says.
Almost 20 years later that same Will Burton is in the touring cast appearing at the Fox, playing the lead role of Adam Maitland (a young Alec Baldwin in the movie) and Breslin is the understudy for that role.
“It’s a bizarre coincidence,” says Breslin. “The theater world is big but it’s also small.”
At Pebblebrook, he recalls, “We went to New York City on field trips to see musicals. I saw ‘Wicked’ for the first time in 2005. I had no idea of what theater could be and how much you can feel while you’re sitting in a show watching a fictional story.
“Something clicked. I was like, ‘Oh I understand. We’re telling stories through song and dance, and it can be really powerful.”
Credit: Matthew Murphy
Credit: Matthew Murphy
After graduating, Breslin attended the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, then struck out for Broadway. He was in the original Broadway cast of “Newsies,” another film-turned-stage-musical that generated a passionate attachment among younger fans.
(Google may tell you that Breslin is the brother of the actress Abigail Breslin, because she has a brother whose name is also Ryan Breslin. That’s not true, but he hears it a lot. “We’ve actually met, Abigail and I,” he says. “She came to see ‘Newsies’ and we were like, ‘The Internet says we’re related, and we probably are somewhere, like extended family, but not directly related.’”)
He also had a brief but memorable dancing turn in the Coen Brothers’ 2016 movie “Hail, Caesar!” In a spoof of movie musicals like “On the Town” and “South Pacific,” Channing Tatum led Breslin and other dancers in “No Dames,” a hilarious and rather homoerotic song and dance about sailors who are shipping out and facing only male companionship for eight months.
In 2022, when it appeared the Broadway “Beetlejuice” was running out of steam, Breslin asked to leave the cast and join the new national touring company. His wife Hillary Smith is the company’s assistant manager.
He made the move, and now the couple tours the country with their poodle mix Daisy.
“It’s kind of perfect,” he says. “We planned this whole thing and now we’re all on the road together.”
THEATER PREVIEW
“Beetlejuice: The Musical”
March 19-24 at the Fox Theatre. Sold out. 660 Peachtree St. NE, Atlanta. 855-285-8499, foxtheatre.org.
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