By Joe Contreras, Latin Life Denver Media

It may seem hard to fathom that a play about death can be so hilariously entertaining and endearing yet provide deeply provoking thoughts about the afterlife at the same time. “Beetlejuice The Musical” currently playing the the Buell Theatre at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts for four nights only will have you laughing out loud while contemplating life and death at the same time.

Adam and Barbara Maitland are a young couple living in their historic New England home planning their future together. Adam (David Wilson) fawns over the crib that will someday cradle their baby. While doing household chores, zap! they suddenly find themselves both dead existing is some sort of after life still in their beloved home.

When an eccentric, pretentious family from New York, Charles and Delia Deetz, along with goth daughter Lydia buy and remodel the house the Maitland’s are forced to retreat to the home’s attic. They watch as all their once precious belongings, including the crib, are tossed into dumpster with no regard as to what they once meant to their owners. They look at all the junk they accumulated over the years in their attic. So much stuff, some they never used or would have never used again. Just clutter that was hard to dispose of.

Adam (David Wilson) and Barbara (Kaitlin Feely) cannot stand these new occupants and try to haunt and scare them away but to no avail.

Beetlejuice (Ryan Stajmiger) appears. He is a mischievous, obnoxious and crude ghost who calls himself a “bio-exorcist.” He acts like an underworld con man who helps ghosts scare living people out of their homes. But, there’s a catch, they must get a living person to say his name three times, “Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice.” But who and how. The living can’t see or hear them.

Lydia (Leianna Weaver) is her father’s teen daughter. Dressed in gothic black, she is a loner and deeply misses her deceased mother. Meanwhile, her father Charles (Jeff Brooks) carries on a relationship with Delia (Bailey Frankenberg) a sexy life coach he has brought into their lives to help them cope with their loss. Lydia resents the woman and they don’t connect.

But wait!, Lydia can see the dead couple and Beetlejuice as well. When they convince her to say “Beetlejuice” three times, it’s “showtime” as all hell breaks loose as they conspire to scare away Lydia’s father and his new found love. The sounds of screaming is music to their ears.

Lydia hopes to enter the “nether world” a sort of purgatory where dead souls go maybe forever. “Life is short but death is long” is a line from the play that may stick with you for awhile. Lydia longs to find her mother in this mysterious abyss. It reminded me of the movie “Coco” when a young boy, Miguel, has his living soul pulled out of his physical body, transforming him into a skeleton-like spirit who can cross over to the “Land of the Dead”.

Meanwhile, Beetlejuice is obsessed with the underage Lydia and wants to marry her so he can escape the Netherworld and live in the mortal world forever to create chaos wherever he goes.

It’s all great fun for the audience with all the powerful performances, antics, songs, dance choreography and stage effects that occur throughout the production. Many people were dressed as characters in the production. There were black and white stripe outfits everywhere. Beetle Juice hand bags, skirts, t-shirts, one black and one white shoe. It was like a ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show’ cult gathering.

The magic in the show is not all it’s cracked up to be, but who cares. With the exception of some levitation it does not add or take away from the production. The really cool part is the huge double headed monstrous “sand worm” that feeds on ghosts exorcising them forever.

The play is based on Tim Burton’s iconic 1988 film Beetlejuice. Tim Burton is known for directing iconic, visually distinctive films like, Edward Scissorhands, Batman, and producing The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Is there a happy ending to all of this chaos? Well, you really should find out for yourself.

With music by Eddie Perfect and a extra large production staff, Beetlejuice The Musical plays the Buell Theatre thru August 9, 2026.

Approximately 2 hours and 30 minutes, including one 20-minute intermission

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