BEETLEJUICE JR

It all started way back at Faith’s birthday party. Faith and I were talking to our good friend Owen, who played a police man and a depressed bumblebee in Mary Poppins JR, when he told us that he’d seen the most recent post from the 7th Street Theater about what two shows they’d be doing that year. Imagine A Dragon, and, more importantly, Beetlejuice JR.

Beetlejuice: The Musical was the only production I’d known prior to auditions that I was able to do, and that made me incredibly excited, so I got to practicing my Beetlejuice voice. And by the time we’d finished Once Upon A Mattress and gone to the cast party (which was, coincidentally, at the same bowling alley Faith’s birthday was held at), I had pretty much nailed the voice, so much so that once I performed at callbacks, nearly everyone who auditioned for the part thought that it would go to me. (And that isn’t guesswork. This is based off of actual things I’ve heard from basically everybody who was there for callbacks.)

Then, one night, my mom came into my room and handed me the phone. It was the director, Kyle.

“Hey, [Makenzie]?”

“Yea..?”

“Would you be alright with playing Adam Maitland?”

The role of Beetlejuice went to a guy called Carl. The same Carl who played Bert in Mary Poppins. Now, based on the fact that he played a character as light and whimsical as Bert, you’d expect him not to be great as a character like Beetlejuice…

I’d like to say you’d be wrong.

This isn’t to say that Carl is a bad actor. He’s pretty good. He’s a decent singer. He’s a great dancer. But he does not have the energy required for a character like Beetlejuice. And I’m not alone in that sentiment. Nearly every single person I’ve spoken to about it has agreed that Carl shouldn’t’ve been cast as Beetlejuice.

And I wouldn’t be so hung up about it if I had gotten notes from the directors, been told what Carl was able to do that I wasn’t which made him a better pick. But I got nothing. And when I asked, I was told that they can’t tell me for whatever reason.

But the biggest thing I’ve heard (which I have yet to prove), is that Kyle told his high school choir class that he “picked favorites” when casting for Beetlejuice JR. The leading theory for me and my friend group is that Carl was always going to get the role. Carl, from what I’ve heard from those who have a history with both Kyle and Carl, has always gotten main roles whether he was fit for them or not.

And I’d like to say, once again, I am not the only person who thinks I would’ve been a better fit for Beetlejuice than Carl. Nearly every single person in the cast that I have talked to agrees. Now, did Carl get himself together and kill it in the end? Yes. Did every single rehearsal prior to dress rehearsals have no energy from Carl? Also yes.

To sum up that whole ordeal, Suburban Beetlejuice.

Anyways, going back to that first week of rehearsals, I had decided that I’d go out of my way to make friends, unlike in Mary Poppins where I just awkwardly sat there doing nothing all lunch until someone finally came up to me. Usually during lunchtime there are one to four circles, though if there’s just one big circle, it’s usually formed throughout lunch rather than it being there to start with. Really though, I can separate the circles into two main groups at lunch. The big name hotshots, and the underdogs. Now, of course, the big name hotshots and the underdogs are basically the same in terms of the types of people in them. It’s just that the underdogs from an outside perspective seem more, well, like the underdogs than the other group, and the other group usually consists of the kids that always get big roles: Macey, Carl, etcetera, and their friends. That or just people that look more ‘normal’ than the ones in the other group. Though at that point, you can start to realize how superficial the whole thing is.

But suffice it all to say, I sat with the underdogs. And that was where I met Tyler, Emi, Connor, and most of my other friends from this year’s production. Shortly after meeting said friends, Tyler invited me to this group chat that included a few of them. Notably Emi, Monroe, and Zoey. Over the course of the production, the group chat would grow until it couldn’t fit any more members and was converted into a Discord server.

As I grew closer with these friends, I began doing something I hadn’t done at the last 7th Street production, I began going out with my friends. To the roller rink (then not going inside because it was too crowded), to their houses, to the library, restaurants, and various parks. On one of these outings with Tyler, Connor, and Chrissy, we discovered a pile of burgers just.. on the ground in front of a crosswalk; very odd. This very same outing, I discovered that Chrissy was trans and within an hour, she had already offered to share her estrogen with me. That deal is still on by the way, though I’m unsure if she’ll hold up, and considering the time frame of how long it’ll be until I can get my own prescription, it seems unlikely she’ll want to keep it up for very long. Not without some sort of compensation at least.

Several times over the course of the show, I would go over to Aubrey’s house. Another person who I met at 7th Street that year, though who was also in Mary Poppins. The first time was to have her haunted house layout explained to me. See, Aubrey is putting on a haunted house on Halloween this year and I was invited to act in it. This deal is also still on, and with far less concerns than the previously mentioned deal.

The next few times I went to Aubrey’s were mostly just to hang out. We watched obsession, went to the park, started watching Chicago, a movie I’ve still yet to finish mind you, did blind karaoke, etcetera. And every time I’d leave her house, my mother, bless her heart, would freak out at the smell her house had and how it lingered in my clothes. A very strong perfumey smell. One time I was at her house, we recorded a sketch called “The Most Convoluted Joke Ever Told”, something that resulted in me attempting to get Dixie, the jester from Once Upon A Mattress, to drive half an hour to Aubrey’s house just to play a closeted gay guy for the video. This, of course, didn’t happen. It would’ve been very funny though.

Now, it was around this time that I got my learner’s permit and began driving to and from 7th Street for my rehearsals. This was perfect timing for me because it meant that I could get easy hours in since driving to and from the theater was a little over a full hour in and of itself. But unfortunately, just as I was getting the hang of driving, my mom got in an accident that totalled the car. Thankfully, that was the only thing destroyed that day and my mom ended up being fine, save for bruised ankles. Unfortunately however, this meant a lot of missed hours for me, since I wasn’t confident enough in my abilities to drive a completely different vehicle such long distances yet.

Over the course of the production, I kept wanting to write a musical of my own. It began with the concept of House of Leaves: The Musical, which quickly ended when I realized how incredibly difficult it would be to make. Then, an evolution of my Into The Twilight Zone series concept, came The Twilight Zone: The Musical which would have been a series of short musicals all based off of episodes of The Twilight Zone. That idea failed as well due to the fact that I’d have to write multiple musicals and keep it up for a very long time. Plus, there’s an issue with getting the rights for something like that… But finally, I decided on making an original musical. And what better to make it about than The Mad Hatter Corporation, a project I’ve been trying to figure out how to rework for forever. And Monroe fits the description of Matt, the main character of TMHC, perfectly.

All of this is to say that I was incredibly disappointed when I got back into reading House of Leaves, which meant I’d need to choose between which one I wanted to work on at a given time. Reading an extremely long book, or writing an entire musical. See, when dress rehearsals came around, I decided that I needed something to do whenever I had to go back up to my dressing room, and what better entertainment is there than finally finishing the book I started reading earlier this year.

And the only reason I brought entertainment in the first place is that, unlike last year, the people I shared a dressing room with this year really sucked. Last year I shared a room with nice, well-behaved people. Owen, Carl, KJ. This year, I had to share a room with, yes, some people who actually knew how to act backstage of a theater, notably Connor and Ellery, I also had to share that room with a ten year old who constantly yanks at your pant leg like a sick baby and this kid Maks who yells all the time and said himself that he purposefully makes people uncomfortable. It didn’t help that they were annoyingly obsessed with getting the cleanest room. Basically, if you got the ‘cleanest room’ (according to the volunteer monitors working that day), you earned a piece of candy. That’s it. And yet they were obsessed with it. Well, mostly Maks and that ten year old, Ezekiel.

Though, it might not have been as bad as I’m making it out to be considering my mood was already dampened by something going on at the time. See, the same day as the first dress rehearsal, I got sick. Like, stuffy-nose, constantly-coughing sick. In case you’re unaware, that’s not great for theater. It had mostly cleared up by the time of the first performance, but the stuffy nose was still slightly there and incredibly difficult to sing well with.

After opening night, a bunch of people from the show, including me, went to go have dinner at the local Denny's, wherein a whole bunch of shenanigans took place. One of the aforementioned shenanigans was when I mixed hot sauce, maple sirup, sugar and salt into this random refill of soda, and the rest of the night, Monroe's friend kept drinking it and wincing every single sip.

Over the course of each performance, only one of my friends from Elma ever came: Collin Pearson. He showed up on the very last performance we did and we drove home together, since we live on the same road. On the way, we talked about how weird the Elma Drama Program would be without him and the other seniors. He told me that he’d be leaving for college in less than two weeks. Then we stopped at Dairy Queen where, coincidentally, Via (Sister Camile in Ring Around Rosalie and a lady in waiting in Once Upon A Mattress) had just started working.

My younger brother unsurprisingly loved this show. I think I’m starting to get a feel for the kind of theater he likes.

And I think that’s it for this show.