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[0:00] Mo Brady: You're listening to The Ensemblist, the only podcast that shows you Broadway from the inside out. Welcome, I'm Mo Brady.

[0:16] Mo Brady: Just yesterday we heard the news that Broadway's shutdown will be extended through June 7th, and that means that Beetlejuice the musical has already played its final performance. While the extension of the Broadway shutdown was expected, it was really disappointing to find out that this fan-favorite musical wouldn't be able to perform on Broadway anymore. One of its cast members, Elliott Mattox, was gracious enough to join me on the phone yesterday afternoon to tell me how he learned that the show had already played its closing performance and how he's mourning the closing of a show without the usual grieving process. Here's our conversation.

[0:49] Mo Brady: Hi, buddy.

[0:50] Elliott Mattox: Hi.

[0:51] Mo Brady: Would you introduce yourself and tell us where you're calling from?

[0:54] Elliott Mattox: I'm Elliott Mattox, and today I'm calling from Lexington, Kentucky.

[0:59] Mo Brady: Is your job? Was your job? What has your job been most recently?

[1:04] Elliott Mattox: I am a part of Beetlejuice on Broadway, of the original cast, and as of a couple hours ago, that's all done at the Winter Garden.

[1:14] Mo Brady: That's all she wrote at the Winter Garden, yeah. I'm wondering, I guess, when you knew that the show was over and then backing out from that when you had thought the show might be over.

[1:20] Elliott Mattox: We got our closing notice a long time ago. I feel like it's all kind of a blur, but I feel like it was November, around November, December time that we got our official notice that we would be shutting up shop at the Winter Garden as of June 6th, to make room for The Music Man, of course. This was all the vacating, we're evicted language. Yeah, it was long enough ago that I was like, that's a bummer, but shows open and close within the amount of time that they have between now and their announced closing notice.

[2:03] Elliott Mattox: Absolutely. I mean, six months notice is really a blessing. Have that much time to get your ducks in a row and save and also to relish doing the show with everyone. You have plenty of time. It doesn't feel rushed. It's not sad. So we knew that June 6th was our final day at the Winter Garden when we kind of stopped the show for, we stopped the show, obviously, when the CDC and the Broadway League decided to shut down Broadway for a month, 30 days. That felt like it would be 30 days. As we got closer to the time, you know, we're talking on April 8th, and as of this morning, I had the information that I was still going back to work, or the lack of information that I was still going back to work on the 13th. But everything's evolving so quickly that we all had a feeling that we would probably have played our last show at the Winter Garden.

[3:05] Mo Brady: When did that feeling set in? Was it in the last week? Was it in the week after Broadway shut down?

[3:12] Elliott Mattox: It's been in the last couple of weeks. At Beetlejuice, we usually have drinks at the theater every Saturday night and different people host it. It's very fun. We have themes and all that. And we've been continuing that on Zoom since we stopped performances. You know, those chats are always kind of about like, will we, won't we, what the state of the show is. And over the past few weeks, it kind of, everyone was kind of on the same page that we had probably finished up at the Winter Garden.

[3:45] Mo Brady: And where were you specifically on this spectrum between Pollyanna, we're never going to close, and like Debbie Downer?

[3:55] Elliott Mattox: Yeah, I think I usually try and operate more on the Debbie Downer side, just because I always find it better for me to just kind of see things not negatively, but more realistically, like seeing how the business works. You know, I've been in shows that had closed before that didn't seem like they should be closing. You know, with how much kind of Beetlejuice overcame and how much of a success story it became. It was all sweeter when we thought that, you know, we wouldn't have near this kind of success that the show has had. So then a good way to operate for me to just try and stay realistic. And if things turn out even better than I think, then I'm surprised. And it's a nice, a nice relief. But I don't see it as negative. I see it as just being realistic in this business that's so unpredictable and even more so now.

[4:51] Mo Brady: All right, so you had the hunch that you'd played your last performance. But like you said this morning, you were operating on the lack of news that you would be going back to work this Tuesday. What comes first? You read online that Broadway shut down through June 7, or you get an email from your employer?

[5:10] Elliott Mattox: We have been really lucky that in every stage of this, our producers have been really upfront and honest with us. Like from the very start of the rumors about Music Man and the Winter Garden, we have been in the loop. You know, we've been told there's an article coming out about this rumor. It's not 100 percent fact yet. We're still figuring it out. They're always keeping us posted about the trajectory and the future of Beetlejuice. This morning before the press release went out at 11, I think this morning, we had a meeting at 10 where we all got on a Zoom call and got our official kind of notice, which was very strange having like that meeting not in person and had received closing notice for Beetlejuice in person already.

So it was like the second closing notice. And I think that it's so strange. You know, theater is so community centric to not have that actual kind of community, that energy in the theater, that like, you know, rallying to do the show after the announcement is a really strange kind of place to be.

[6:23] Mo Brady: Right. Because usually we think about closing notices being delivered on stage to a company on a Tuesday at like 625 before a seven o'clock show. There's a sign up on the call board when you walk into the theater. It says there's a full company meeting. Everybody trots out to the stage and the producer says something very nice, but says, and here we're closing on this date. And you have that group mourning and then you go and you channel that energy into a two and a half hour performance.

[6:54] Elliott Mattox: But it was so we were all very positive, really super positive after our first closing notice. First of all, we kind of had a heads up that something like that was going to happen just because our producers were really open and honest with us. And, you know, our first closing notice, we had six months of doing the show, which is a really long time. So it didn't feel immediate. It didn't feel like it didn't feel like anything that we would have to deal with for a while. So this it's crazy thinking we played our last performance on a random Tuesday night in March. You know, it's very strange.

[7:29] Mo Brady: All right. Because you guys had Wednesdays off. So it literally was a random Tuesday in March.

[7:33] Elliott Mattox: A random Tuesday in March. Yeah, I saw I actually because we had Wednesdays off and I'm such a I'm such a theater person. I was like, OK, Wednesday's off. Here we go. Double features. We're seeing shows. And so I saw the last ever performance of The Inheritance all day on Wednesday.

[7:49] Mo Brady: What else happened in this Zoom call this morning? Was it like pick up your stuff at the theater? I mean, because you like left not knowing that you were not coming back.

[7:58] Elliott Mattox: Yeah. Oh, yeah. My makeup brushes are like not clean. It's there's you know, like there's probably a not clean coffee cup somewhere around like it's it's very it's very strange. I mean, we will be able to get our things from the theater. Obviously, there's time before June and it's such a crazy circumstance. And I'm sure that those things will all be ironed out. But it's so fresh to everyone that we're all just kind of figuring out how to how to like what's the best course of action in this like kind of unprecedented time.

[8:31] Mo Brady: Yeah. How are you feeling?

[8:32] Elliott Mattox: I'm feeling OK. I'm feeling OK. Again, like having already we already knew we were closing. This isn't like a like a shock. You know, I had already mentally kind of prepared to close. It's just happening a little bit sooner. And of course, I'm isolating away from the city right now. And so it's it's in times like this, I really like yearn for the you know, like the post show drink at your favorite bar with your cast mates to have that kind of physical community. So that's tough right now. Just hot takes. Everyone is in the same boat right now, whether their show is planning to come back in June or whether they were opening a new show on Broadway or touring and your show closed without you knowing it.

And so many of us are in the same boat right now that it's just part of kind of the moment that we're all experiencing. So trying to keep that perspective, you know, it's such it's a bummer. Of course, I've been working on the show a really long time since development back in like 2017, September of 2017. So it's been a long, really rewarding, really exciting time with Beetlejuice. And it's, you know, there have been so many weird things happen with the show with from it like the from the its initial reception to the fans kind of picking it up. It's our successes are kind of like shortcomings, all everything that the community we've built with it. It feels so it feels so unfinished right now with the news that we just kind of did our last show without knowing it.

I think it's a good lesson to always, like always do the show like it's your last is you just never know when something like this is going to happen. And never take like kind of any of those moments for granted. That's definitely where my headspace is right now. And just really reflective having some alone time is going to be nice to really reflect on on everything and try and really stay grateful for the the amazing ride that we've had. And the you know, of course, there's always potential for more in the future. Who knows what what the future holds for any of us. But taking right now to just reflect and be really grateful.

[11:14] Mo Brady: Special thanks to Elliott Mattox for joining us today. The Ensemblist was produced today by me, Mo Brady. There are two great ways you can be helping the Ensemblist right now. One is by leaving us a rating and review on Apple podcasts. And the second is by becoming a Patreon member, which you can do at patreon.com slash the Ensemblist. Please follow us wherever you listen to podcasts, whether that be on Spotify, on Apple podcasts, or at our home of Broadway podcast network at bpn.fm. You can also follow us on Instagram where we share the stories of artists working in the shadow of the Coronavirus pandemic every day. Thanks for listening. Until next time.