History Theatre / Beetlejuice

** During "Fright of Their Lives" Betelgeuse recommends the Martens learn how to throw their voices like he did when he met them in the movie, right down to also calling it "fun at parties".

* DiesDifferentlyInAdaptation: Adam and Barbara are killed when they plummet into their own basement, thanks to the house's old flooring. In the movie, they drowned after driving into a river.

** The Maitlands' fatal accident is changed to them falling through the old creaky flooring in their house. In the film, they accidentally drove their car into a river.

** According to the original script for the movie, Lydia’s mother’s name was Evelyn. Here, her name is Emily.

** In the 2022 US Tour, Lydia Deetz is played by Isabella Esler, who is Colombian-American amd Barbara is played by Britney Coleman, who is black.

[[caption-width-right:230:''A show about death.'']]

--->'''Betlegeuse:''' ''(on the cast recording)'' If you die while listening to this album, it's still gonna keep playing!
--->''(On the Today Show and at the Tony Awards):'' If you die during this performance, the broadcast will not stop!
--->''(At the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade):'' If you die during Thanksgiving dinner, you don't have to wash the dishes!

-->'''Lydia:''' What was that thing?
-->'''Betelgeuse:''' That was a {{Sandworm}}. And they eat ghosts. ''(To the audience)'' [[BreakingTheFourthWall Foreshadowing.]]

* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: Mere moments after he's resurrected, [[spoiler:Lydia impales Betelgeuse through the chest with some of Delia’s "Bad Art" in order to send him back to the Netherworld]].

* LoopholeAbuse: Realizing that the terminology from ''The Handbook For The Recently Deceased'' relies on semantics and ExactWords, Lydia hatches a scheme to rid the house of Betelgeuse once and for all... [[spoiler: by going along with BJ's forced marriage and getting everyone in on the act to sell him on the con, the wedding successfully returns Betelgeuse to life... [[BroughtDownToNormal and saps him of his powers]]. Before he can do anything rash, Lydia promptly kills him (again) and as he's now considered "Recently Deceased", she's able to send him back to the Netherworld.]] The plan would have succeeded had [[spoiler: Juno]] not intervened.

--> '''Betelgeuse:''' Adam -- I don't even -- No.

-->'''Betelgeuse:''' (''when asked about what he’s going to do now'') ...Maybe go on a little vision quest, find my dad... sequel!?! (''imitates airhorn sound effects'')

** Later in the song, Betelgeuse exclaims ''"L'chaim! To life!"'', a reference to the song from ''Theatre/FiddlerOnTheRoof'', which ''also'' celebrated the marriage between an older man and a much younger girl. [[note]] Funnily enough, Adam Dannheiser - Charles in the OBC - joined this show fresh off of having played said older man, the impossibly-cool-named Lazer Wolf, though the circumstances in ''Fiddler'' are significantly less skeevy and the audience is never led to believe he'd be a "creepy old guy". His betrothed simply loves her childhood sweetheart instead.[[/note]]
** Lydia’s mother’s name, Emily, could be a reference to [[WesternAnimation/CorpseBride another Tim Burton character]].

* TakeThat: BJ's brutal jab at a certain musical from the 1940's [[note]]which was lampooned by the [[WesternAnimation/{{Beetlejuice}} cartoon]].[[/note]]

-->'''Delia:''' This is already the BEST exorcism I've ever been to!
-->'''Charles:''' Oh lord.

-->'''Betelgeuse''': Looks like we're not invisible anymore!
-->''(BJ and Lydia give the audience [[SlasherSmile slasher smiles]] as the lights go out)''

--> '''Betelgeuse:''' ''[to the audience]'' Wow. Those people just died and you guys are clapping. You look like you're getting really comfy with the whole 'being dead' thing.

* AdaptationalWimp: The Maitlands are depicted as a squeaky clean and overly-polite suburban couple here, and are much worse at scaring people than their movie counterparts (they were able to pull off some genuinely terrifying scares in the film, they just couldn't be seen).

However, in September 2021, as Broadway shows began to reopen, it was revealed that ''Beetlejuice'' [[https://www.playbill.com/article/beetlejuice-finds-a-new-home-viral-musical-will-reopen-on-broadway would return to Broadway in April 2022]], moving to a new location. The show reopened on April 8, 2022 at the Marquis Theatre. Sadly, it was announced the show would close a second time on January 6, 2023.

However, in September 2021, as Broadway shows began to reopen, it was revealed that ''Beetlejuice'' [[https://www.playbill.com/article/beetlejuice-finds-a-new-home-viral-musical-will-reopen-on-broadway would return to Broadway in April 2022]], moving to a new location. The show reopened on April 8, 2022 at the Marquis Theatre.

* AdaptationalBadass: Juno is hit with this hard, thanks to her AdaptationalVillainy. She's now a powerful demon who can push around '''Betelgeuse himself''' with no effort at all. With TheReveal of [[spoiler:her being his mother, it's made pretty clear where BJ got all his zany powers]].

* AdaptationalHeroism: Betelgeuse, while still as crass and obnoxious as ever, is given the sympathetic motive of wanting to experience life again; he just resorts to some sleazy methods to achieve it. At the end, his short-lived resurrection allows him to understand why life is important to those still alive, and it seems to have sapped his love of murder.

* TheBigDamnKiss: Adam and Barbara share a passionate, romantic kiss toward the climax of "Barbara 2.0" to seal the deal on their decision to treat death as a new lease on life.

* BreakingTheFourthWall: Whether it's in the show, in televised performances, or even on the '''cast recording''', Betelgeuse can go full ComicBook/{{Deadpool}} on you if he feels like it.
-->'''Betlegeuse:''' ''(on the cast recording)'' If you die while listening to this album, it's still gonna keep playing!
-->''(On the Today Show and at the Tony Awards):'' If you die during this performance, the broadcast will not stop!
-->''(At the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade):'' If you die during Thanksgiving dinner, you don't have to wash the dishes!

* CentralTheme: Death, of course. The opening number, "The Whole 'Being Dead' Thing", blatantly and repeatedly calls this "a show about death".

->''Nobody is bullet-proof\\

* PragmaticAdaptation: The show does a pretty good job at retaining many of the movie's fantastical elements (characters like the Shrunken Head Man and the sandworm are indeed included), but liberties are still taken when they're needed.

* RaceLift: The role of Otho is originated by Asian actor Kelvin Moon Loh.

** Otho was implied to be gay in the original film and this is still the case in this musical, but the scrapped song "I am Very Good at Running Cults" had him mention that he's bedded a lot of women.

** ''House / Home'' is seen often as the (ownership of / the haunting of the) Victorian plays a major role. The musical’s very first line is the response from '''Day-O''': “Daylight come and me wanna go …” trailing off before it reaches home. Adam Maitland’s first line is “Barbara, I’m home!” The Maitlands’ introductory song ('''Ready, Set, Not Yet''') has them deciding to put off having children because of necessary home renovations (then dying at the end of it). Because they died in their house, Beetlejuice can keep the Maitlands there, haunting it. Getting the Deetzes out of their home is what convinces the Maitlands to team up with Beetlejuice. Lydia balks at moving into the Victorian and selling the house where she used to live (with her recently-deceased mother). The only reason the Deetzes are moving in is to turn the house into a “flagship model home” for her father’s planned gated community. Lydia doesn't accept the idea of this new house being her home, identifying her mother as home instead ("You're my home / My destination"), which establishes the driving motivation behind her actions in the show: she tries to get back home by seeing her mother again ('''Dead Mom'''). Lydia teams up with the Maitlands as they all want the Deetzes out of the house. Lydia finally calls on Beetlejuice when the Maitlands' haunting fails ('''Day-O'''), and it seems her father is going to make money on the Victorian being haunted. Adam opens the portal to the Netherworld, but Barbara closes it as she’s afraid of leaving the house and of change. The Maitlands ('''Barbara 2.0''') then realize they are sick of living in the attic of their house (with their failed projects) and decide to be there for Lydia as she needs a family and “Not a house / But a home.” In the Netherworld, Miss Argentina tells ('''What I Know Now''') Lydia: “So if you are breathing / Go home!” Lydia’s song after that is called '''Home'''. Realizing that she can't bring her mother back from the Netherworld, she despairs, saying that she has no home without her mother, until she identifies her family (her father, Delia and the Maitlands) as being her home. The ending is the Deetzes and the Maitlands deciding to live together and cleaning up the house. The show’s final lyrics are: “Mama, I’m home / I’m home / I’m home,” and the repeated response from '''Day-O'''.

-->''(At the Tony Awards):'' If you die during this performance, the broadcast will not stop!
-->''(At the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade):'' If you die during Thanksgiving Day, you don’t have to do the dishes!

* CanonForeigner: Sky the Girl Scout, who gets her own song at the top of Act 2 and ends up being BJ and Lydia's first scare victim.

* EvolvingMusic: When performed outside of the show, "The Whole Being Dead Thing" always changes to fit the circumstances of the performance. The live Broadway version welcomes the audience to the Winter Garden Theater, but this is changed for the cast recording, and performances for the Tony Awards, ''Series/{{Today}}'' and [[UsefulNotes/MacysThanksgivingDayParade the Macy's Parade]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2jgBRDPWOA change the lyrics]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tMzmJ14wZM to reflect]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oyjwtlX7WE the current venue.]]

** Denial/Bargaining: Spurred on by BJ’s claim that there’s a spell in the Handbook for calling ghosts from the Netherworld, Lydia attempts to use it - and Barbara begins to disintegrate. As a horrified Adam and Lydia look on, BJ gleefully spills the beans on his BatmanGambit - resentful of the fact that Lydia pushed him aside in favor of finding her dead mother, he tricked her into casting a spell for ''exorcising'' ghosts so he could [[ScarpiaUltimatum extort Lydia for his own chance at life through marriage.]] High on his victory, BJ mocks Lydia, cruelly tells her that her mom's gone for good ("Once you go to the Netherworld, ''you don't come back!"''), and Lydia's forced to agree to get him to stop the exorcism.
** Sadness: Just listen to 'Home'.

* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: Mere moments after he's resurrected, [[spoiler:Lydia impales Betelgeuse through the chest with some of Delia’s “Bad Art” in order to send him back to the Netherworld]].
* ImprobableInfantSurvival: Little Sky has a congenital heart disease that's so serious, she "could be killed by a random sneeze". However, even after BJ and Lydia scare the crap out of her ''multiple'' times, she makes it out of the house okay.
* InformedAttribute: Sky's last line lampshades the fact that her arrhythmic heart was able to withstand being terrified by BJ and Lydia.

* SuddenlyShouting: Betelgeuse does it a few times, usually when trying (and failing) to hide his bad nature.
-->'''Betelgeuse:''' Well, it doesn't matter if you say it, Adam, ''THEY HAVE TO BE ALIVE!''

Unfortunately, due to the Broadway shutdown from the UsefulNotes/CoronavirusDisease2019Pandemic, the show missed their closing date; the shutdown began mid-March 2020 and ended in the fall of 2021. Producers had begun looking for a new venue for the show, as well as scheduling a national tour for 2021 or developing a proshoot, but no plans were set in stone, leaving the show's run on Broadway - rather appropriately, given the text - in limbo.

However, due to the Broadway shutdown from the UsefulNotes/CoronavirusDisease2019Pandemic, the show missed their closing date; the shutdown began mid-March 2020 and ended in the fall of 2021. Producers had begun looking for a new venue for the show, as well as scheduling a national tour for 2021 or developing a proshoot, but no plans were set in stone, leaving the show's run on Broadway - rather appropriately, given the text - in limbo.

** "Otho" is actually the character's ''alias''; he reveals his true name ([[spoiler:Kevin]]) shortly before [[spoiler:his demise]]. It's also implied he goes by ''just'' Otho while his film counterpart was Otho Fenwick.

** WordOfGod states that Betelgeuse is pansexual, as he constantly flirts with (and sometimes harasses) Barbara, Adam and Delia and right before "Creepy Old Guy" suggests a collective sexual activity between him and all the characters in the scene.

** ''House / Home'' is seen often as the (ownership of / the haunting of the) Victorian plays a major role. The musical’s very first line is the response from '''Day-O''': “Daylight come and me wanna go …” trailing off before it reaches home. Adam Maitland’s first line is “Barbara, I’m home!” The Maitlands’ introductory song ('''Ready, Set, Not Yet''') has them deciding to put off having children because of necessary home renovations (then dying at the end of it). Because they died in their house, Beetlejuice can keep the Maitlands there, haunting it. Getting the Deetzes out of their home is what convinces the Maitlands to team up with Beetlejuice. Lydia balks at moving into the Victorian and selling the house where she used to live (with her recently-deceased mother). The only reason the Deetzes are moving in is to turn the house into a “flagship model home” for her father’s planned gated community. Lydia doesn't accept the idea of this new house being her home, identifying her mother as home instead ("You're my home / My destination"), which establishes the driving motivation behind her actions in the show: she tries to get back home by seeing her mother again ('''Dead Mom'''). Lydia teams up with the Maitlands as they all want the Deetzes out of the house. Lydia finally calls on Beetlejuice (when the Maitlands' haunting fails ('''Day-O'''), and it seems her father is going to make money on the Victorian being haunted). Adam opens the portal to the Netherworld, but Barbara closes it as she’s afraid of leaving the house and of change. The Maitlands ('''Barbara 2.0''') then realize they are sick of living in the attic of their house (with their failed projects) and decide to be there for Lydia as she needs a family and “Not a house / But a home.” In the Netherworld, Miss Argentina tells ('''What I Know Now''') Lydia: “So if you are breathing / Go home!” Lydia’s song after that is called '''Home'''. Realizing that she can't bring her mother back from the Netherworld, she despairs, saying that she has no home without her mother, until she identifies her family (her father, Delia and the Maitlands) as being her home. The ending is the Deetzes and the Maitlands deciding to live together and cleaning up the house. The show’s final lyrics are: “Mama, I’m home / I’m home / I’m home,” and the repeated response from '''Day-O'''.

* TheDissTrack: "Creepy Old Guy" is one thinly veiled as praise and appreciation for Beetlejuice's...unconventional charms.

* GenreSavvy: While Lydia is committed to making her Dad suffer, she's not an idiot. She knows a supernatural being showing up out of the blue and offering to solve all her problems in exchange for [[DealWithTheDevil one small favor]] is a disaster waiting to happen.

*** Also during this song, he's liable to reference what theater they're performing in, and outright threatens the audience if he hears any cell phones. The song even has different lyrics based on if it's live or on the album, about how if you die, they're going to keep on with the show/the album will still play. Finally, it repeated reminds the audience that this is "a show about death!"

** Charles points out that she's only been wearing black full-time since Emily died, and Lydia protests that she's in mourning, which suggests this is a relatively new thing for her. On the other hand, one of her fondest memories of her mother was that they used to build haunted house attractions in the summer and that Emily dressed as the ghost of Creator/EdgarAllanPoe- perhaps Emily and Lydia simply shared a love of all things spooky no matter how Lydia was dressed at the time?

* PragmaticAdaptation: The show does a pretty good job at retaining many of the movies's fantastical elements (characters like the Shrunken Head Man and the sandworm are indeed included), but liberties are still taken when they're needed.

** Later in the song, Betelgeuse exclaims ''"L'chaim! To life!"'', a reference to the song from ''Theatre/FiddlerOnTheRoof'', which ''also'' celebrated the marriage between an older man and a much younger girl. [[note]] Funnily enough, Adam Dannheiser- Charles in the OBC- joined this show fresh off of having played said older man, the impossibly-cool-named Lazer Wolf, though the circumstances in ''Fiddler'' are significantly less skeevy and the audience is never lead to believe he'd be a "creepy old guy". His betrothed simply loves her childhood sweetheart instead.[[/note]]

* StepfordSmiler: Delia, whose relentlessly cheerful attempts at tuning into the universe, as she calls it, are mostly her way of trying to deal with feeling repeatedly abandoned (not least by her first husband) and her fears of aging.

* Maxine Dean in some portrayals (particularly Zonya Love's). Just listen to her desperate laughter as she says Maxie is "so mean" to her.

* TakeThat: BJ's brutal jab at a certain musical from the 1940's [[note]]and was lampooned by the [[WesternAnimation/{{Beetlejuice}} cartoon]].[[/note]]

* ThisIsGonnaSuck: Charles' reaction to Delia calling in [[ConMan Otho]] to get rid of Betelgeuse.

* WeAllDieSomeday: "The Whole 'Being Dead' Thing" is all about this, with Betelgeuse reminding the audience that they're going to die at some point. The chrous even says it in the lyrics: "oh, and full disclosure, it's a show about death!" It's also the {{central theme}}, and the source of the conflict with Lydia; she's so desperate to see her dead mother again that she'll do whatever Betelgeuse wants. The [[AnAesop aesop]] at the end of the play is that all we can really do is make peace with death, and hold onto our memories of those who have passed on.

** As of the 2022 reopening, Maxine Dean and Juno are both played by Zoya Love, who is Black.

* Maxine Dean in some portrayals (particularly Zoya Love's). Just listen to her desperate laughter as she says Maxie is "so mean to her".

** Adam and Barbara in the original film were essentially sweet, normal people intended as AudienceSurrogates, and while Adam was a little bit of a CloudCuckoolander they were both very grounded, as well as pretty good at coming up with scares, just not at being ''seen performing them''. Here they're essentially [[Film/TheRockyHorrorPictureShow Brad and Janet if they never made it to Frank's castle]], and too set in their milquetoast ways to have basically any idea of how to scare anyone until Lydia collaborates with them.

** Charles points out that she's only been wearing black full-time since Emily died, and Lydia protests that she's in mourning, which suggests this is a relatively new thing for her. On the other hand, one of her fondest memories of her mother was that they used to build haunted house attractions in the summer and that Emily dressed as the ghost of Creator/EdgarAllenPoe- perhaps Emily and Lydia simply shared a love of being NightmareFuelStationAttendants no matter how Lydia was dressed at the time?

** "Otho" is actually the character's ''alias''; he reveals his true name ([[spoiler:Kevin]]) shortly before [[spoiler:his demise]].

** Later in the song, Betelgeuse exclaims ''"L'chaim! To life!"'', a reference to the song from ''Theatre/FiddlerOnTheRoof'', which ''also'' celebrated the marriage between an older man and a teenage girl.

** Betelgeuse himself is portrayed in a way that implies him being pansexual, as he constantly flirts with (and sometimes harasses) Barbara, Adam and Delia and right before "Creepy Old Guy" suggests a collective sexual activity between him and all the characters in the scene.

** The scene where the Maitlands grotesquely disfigure their faces is omitted completely.

* RefugeInAudacity: "Creepy Old Guy" starts with BJ not buying any of the con until things get so utterly over the top (both Maitlands coming onto him including Adam kissing him, wacky dance numbers, lots of Lydia laying it on thick) that he assumes that sure, Lydia ''absolutely'' wants to marry him and let him get what he wants because she is now perfectly okay with his green-card marriage. Why not?