Eddie Perfect
(Photo by Emilio Madrid for Broadway.com)
Singer-songwriter and actor Eddie Perfect—the Tony-nominated composer of Broadway’s Beetlejuice—will assume the title role in Beetlejuice‘s upcoming Australian premiere at Melbourne’s Regent Theatre. Performances will begin in May 2025.
The musical’s director Alex Timbers announced the news on Instagram, writing, “Aussie Friends: Beetlejuice’s own composer / lyricist (and Melbourne native) EDDIE PERFECT will be playing the title role when the show premieres in Melbourne in 2025.” He continued, “Hearing Eddie perform these Beetlejuice songs in demo form is how we first fell in love with his music (and how he got hired for the show!) so it’s thrilling that audiences will get to experience his take on this character first-hand and live.”
Perfect’s past acting credits include six seasons of the hit series Offspring and stage roles in Keating! The Musical, Misanthropology, The Threepenny Opera and his biographical musical comedy Shane Warne The Musical. He was slated to star in the Australian premiere of the Dolly Parton musical 9 to 5, but the production was indefinitely postponed due to the Covid pandemic.
Based on the 1988 Tim Burton film, Beetlejuice has music and lyrics by Perfect and a book by Scott Brown and Anthony King. It opened on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theatre in April 2019, closing March 10 2020 during the pandemic shutdown, and reopening at the Marquis Theatre in April 2022 where it ran until January 2023. The production earned eight 2019 Tony Award nominations including Best Musical, Best Book and Best Score. The show is currently on a national tour, which launched in December 2022.
