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[0:13] Robert Bannon: Well, welcome to the round table, everybody. My name is Robert Bannon. You're listening to some Broadway World over here on the Broadway Podcast Network on iHeart on Spotify. I am in Detroit. I left the cold days of New York City to come to the cold days of Detroit. And while in Detroit, I really love Broadway in Detroit at the beautiful Fisher Theater. And our next guest is gonna be haunting the halls of the whole entire Fisher Theater for the next few days. And I'm so excited that you're a ballad already. Justin Collette is here.

[0:50] Justin Collette: Are you exhaust- I'm tired for you.

[0:53] Robert Bannon: I'm tired for all of us. I'm tired for the world.

[0:59] Justin Collette: Yeah. I think the New York Times said we've been to 89 cities, and those are different cities, right? So we've been back to some cities a few times, but it's been essentially a new city every week for almost three years now.

[1:13] Robert Bannon: Oh my gosh. And it is not the most um lax. This is not like you are on stage for 15 minutes and you say juice is not much of a sitter.

[1:22] Justin Collette: No.

[1:23] Robert Bannon: No. How do you take care of yourself?

[1:27] Justin Collette: Oh, I mean, it you have to do everything to take care of yourself. I mean, some weeks I need to be like a teetotaling yoga-doing monk, and then other weeks I need to eat a bunch of pizza and have some beers. It's just like it's trying to maintain your like mental and physical health while also navigating like this wild country that has some cities that are, you know, 10,000 feet up in the sky, and some are in deserts and some are in different climates. Uh so it also is like figuring out how to maintain like the voice and stuff in in like a new city in a new uh environment every week that you've never been to that uh you haven't tried to do this there yet. So it's like just my body's become a weird little science experiment.

[2:14] Robert Bannon: Yes. Well, I mean, it is epically uh a role that is when you watch it. I don't think anyone that's there will um envy the amazing amount of athleticism, comedy, vocal chops, everything that you do on stage is something you will never see before. If you haven't seen Beetlejuice, you need to check it out. How did your journey to this show happen?

[2:38] Justin Collette: Oh, um, I mean, uh, I auditioned for it and booked it, and three years later, here we are. Yeah, I mean, I saw it. I know Alex Brightman, who was playing him uh when he was doing um when Alex was in workshops for this, uh, I was doing School of Rock on Broadway, and because he done that role as well, he would come by the theater, and uh, and we were talking. I remember him telling me how excited he was doing Beetlejuice, how funny it was, and how they were letting him do all these jokes, and we were just like, he was telling me all the jokes they were putting in the show, and I was like, I have to see this. So I took a weekend off of School of Rock and my my writing partner Kyle uh and I um were like, let's just go see what this musical is like for like an out of town.

And so we saw it in um I went to see him do it in in DC. Uh and I was just like, this show is funny. Yeah, I thought I and uh I'm like a bit of a snob when it comes to things that are funny. Although I just saw the naked gun movie, it's really good uh it's so funny I loved it um but yeah I thought this I thought the script was so funny and at the time I wasn't like you know I'm going to do this but I did when I saw it know like oh if I was doing this I know exactly what I would like that's Alex is doing exactly what I would do I wouldn't do that like because that's his like we like I just I like I saw I said the the writing just spoke to me so cleanly I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it so I wanted to work with at least those writers at some point but I didn't think that I would actually do this show uh and then uh when uh they asked me if I wanted to audition for it I was like uh yeah like I I thought I I wanted to do it if I could do it the way that I wanted to do it and they seem to be they seem to be cool with that so um yeah here we are three years later and I've been doing it ever since and it's it's just been so challenging and it's been a great opportunity to grow and to do comedy in like different states across this country right now is such an interesting task um uh to find out what people think is funny anymore and stuff it's just it's been it's been such a cool trip.

[3:40] Robert Bannon: Well you guys are not just a little road and pony show I mean you come in with trucks you have a big ol' set there's i you you guys are the traveling circus, literally, across this country. What's it like behind the scenes to move this baby around?

[5:22] Justin Collette: I mean, our crew is the it like they work way harder than I do. It's it's unbelievable what these people do. You know, so our show comes down. Our our schedule for most of this tour has been, you know, we we uh do sound check Tuesday afternoon or like Tuesday around five. Uh then we have a show Tuesday night, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, two shows Saturday, two shows Sunday. We come down around 9 30 Sunday night. Uh the crew then loads out the show onto seven transport trucks. Uh, and they're loading out until usually four or five in the morning. The crew then uh cabs to the airport, gets on an airplane, sleeps on the flight, and then they start loading in on Monday, like that same day, around like four or five.

They start loading uh on that day already. So like it's just it they don't sleep. They haven't slept in years. I don't know, I don't know how. I literally don't know how they do it. Um it's so tough, and they're there's such pros. And our show is like always ready on Tuesday night when we have to open for that that new city. And you know, that's also when like press is there usually in a new city. So there's so much pressure on that on that first show. Uh still, even to this day I feel it in every new city. That Tuesday night show is is is stressful. Um but the crew just they they set up those projectors, the projections, the special effects, the like everything. And and uh in like, you know, in what for like 36 hours? It's just been it's insane. It's insane.

[6:59] Robert Bannon: Well, listen, this is the show that you need to see. It's gonna be in a couple of other cities uh also on this little journey that you guys are on before it runs into New York. So it's gonna be in Philly. You're in Philly right now, or you just finish Philly?

[7:12] Justin Collette: You're finishing.

[7:13] Robert Bannon: We're in Philly till Sunday night. And then you're coming to Detroit August 5th to the 10th, Broadway in Detroit.com. Get your tickets for the Fisher. You go to Cleveland, you go to North Carolina, and then the show's gonna come and roll into New York City.

[7:26] Justin Collette: That's right.

[7:28] Robert Bannon: How is that feel?

[7:30] Justin Collette: Uh I don't I don't know. Who knows who's gonna be in the cast? I don't know who's gonna be in the cast either.

[7:39] Robert Bannon: Okay, I don't know anything. But I will say for the show, I I think that it's like I think that it's so special. I mean, uh, you know, a lot of people in this show, it it's gonna be their Broadway debut. And for for you know our show, the really cool thing about it is like the age range. So our show, it like a lot of you know, casts people from you know, they're they're like literally 20 years old to like their late 50s, and so it's it's people of like who've been dreaming about this in some cases for like 50 years, and in some cases they're just like I saw this show a few years ago and I auditioned for it and I got in, Mila. Um so uh it's like uh yeah, it's it's it's such a big deal for everybody.

Um, and the different stakes and what it means to everybody in our cast is like really really moving to watch. I've been on Broadway before. It's it's not like not special to do it again. Um uh and when I was on Broadway before, it was, you know, uh with 13 10 year olds who are constantly making their Broadway debut as well. So, like, it's always fun to be around a bunch of people who are making their Broadway debut. It's just it's a beautiful energy, and people are so excited.

[9:01] Robert Bannon: Well, I'll have my fingers crossed for you. I hope it works out this this fall. I hope that everybody gets a ticket and goes sees it in Detroit because you have to. Detroit is the best.

[9:09] Justin Collette: The Detroit is the you know, I I have to say, because a lot of people fall in love with this show, and a lot of people sometimes kids, it's their first experience seeing a Broadway show. And then you must go out in the stage door and meet kids and meet adults and meet super fans of this show. What's it like when you see people outside and they fall, they fan out and freak out about this show? Either it's their childhood or they're discovering it for the first time now.

[9:36] Justin Collette: Yeah, it it feels uh you're like a lightning rod for a lot of things that aren't you, is the truth in this show. Like, there's like either people like I all the time the stage drawer people want to talk about Alex, and then uh when Alex is doing it, all he'll people want to talk about him about Michael Keaton. And then like it's just like the the show has had so many caretakers and so many like uh iterations of it, like the cartoon as well. Like, like people who are Beetlejuice in the cartoon and Lydia on the cartoon. There's so many different ways people fall in love with either Beetlejuice or just the Tim Burton universe. So uh you become like uh you're a bit of a mall Santa, just like taking all the credit for all the gifts that you bring to all the children, and like sometimes you feel like a bit of a fraud.

You're like, oh, I'm gonna leave here and go to that. I'm not really Santa. I'm gonna go to this bar and and and spend my Santa money. That's a sad example of what this that's not really what it's like. Um, but uh it is there are parts of it that's like uh you know I try to own as much as I can about like uh the performance I put on that night, but also like you gotta be there to to uh uh have people express their fandom to what this like property means to them too. So it's it's really big. It's a lot of very, very big emotions for that uh that people have with the stage tour and fans of the show, and it's so beautiful and it's so great, and it's weird feeling like you own some of them, but not all of them, and you try to like yeah, you try to make space for it.

[11:13] Robert Bannon: If you're an 80s baby and you have not seen a Broadway show or seen Beetlejuice, you need to go get tickets and see it. If you're new because of the new movie, or you or have never seen her, you want to, it's getting fallish, or you want to have a fun night out. This is the show to see. You know, I brought my godson Sam. He had seen The Lion King, and he had seen Aladdin, and he had gone in New York and he was.

[11:37] Justin Collette: Godson's a big smoker, huh?

[11:39] Robert Bannon: Big young, very start young in New Jersey. These vapors, they're just they're killing our generation.

[11:45] Justin Collette: It's bad.

[11:46] Robert Bannon: No, it's not good. And then he was I took him to Beetlejuice and I got this. Um I can show you where it's next to great. I bring it all shit like eight times a week. Take a coin, take a coin, tell a wine, take a breath. Do a show breath, death. Yo, so now he calls me and he says, Robert, there's a commercial. Beetlejuice is back. So this is the way you're introducing the next generation to musical theater. I love it.

[12:22] Justin Collette: Yeah, uh like the response for the younger generation to this show is is great. I think that's the part of that great script that I was talking about. Like the lyrics in the songs, too. I think they're just like they they've they've found a way to make musical theater language more into like the common vernacular. And I think it's just connecting with people in a way that the dialogue doesn't feel stilted. It feels natural and real. And uh people are then able to more authentically connect with the story and the characters.

[12:50] Robert Bannon: Well, I know we can follow you on Instagram. The link will be below so we could stay up to all the things that is Justin. Um, you write, you're a comedian, you have lots of improv. I'm sure there's moments where you get to have some fun improv on stage at Beetlejuice.

[13:02] Justin Collette: It's been known to happen, yes.

[13:04] Robert Bannon: I'm sure you get a little stage manager note. Maybe you do you ever take it too far?

[13:09] Justin Collette: Uh no.

[13:13] Robert Bannon: Yes, let them go, let them fly. And everybody flying into Detroit, literally, the next week you got to get your tickets, go to Broadwayandetroit.com. We'll be there. We're really excited to see. If you're in for pizza and beer, call me. But if it's one of those like healthy weeks, then you're on your own, Justin.

[13:31] Justin Collette: See how I feel. I mean, I'm I'm basically made of cheesesteaks this week. So uh else we'll see what I need next week. I might need a bit of a yoga.

[13:37] Robert Bannon: Okay. Congratulations, the best is yet to come. We look forward to seeing you.

[13:41] Justin Collette: Thanks, Robert. Enjoy the run.

[13:44] Robert Bannon: Thanks.

[13:45] Justin Collette: Bye.