Boos on Broadway: A Halloween Playlist

After more than a year of darkness due to the pandemic, the lights of Broadway are shining brightly once again. And I, for one, am ready for those curtains to part, transporting me and the audience on a shared journey. Live performances affect us in palpable ways, building empathy and nurturing compassion. Of course, they also take us to the darker sides of humanity. As soon as box offices opened, I planned a weekend to New York City. This month I’ll be attending Moulin Rouge and Six, in addition to two traveling Broadway shows, Waitress and Pretty Woman, in Washington DC before the end of year.

In anticipation of Halloween – my favorite holiday – and in celebration of the return of Broadway, I will take you through five of my favorite spooky musicals. As a closet goth, it should not be a surprise that all these shows aptly fit the Halloween spirt. Mixing horror with musicals might sound a bit odd, but they can create iconic moments. While musicals are often cheery or tragic, they can also be terrifying and creepy affairs.

Let’s begin our spooky tour with the sound of a chilling scream.

Do you hear that sound?

That beautiful sound?

That is the sound, of clean, white, shorts turning brown

Torture and pain

Breaking a brain (this is so weird!)

A sound that says

I will never sleep well again

The sound of a scream, is music to me

A sound that says fifteen years full-time therapy

Trauma and fear, it sings in my ear

Ain't it the sweetest noise around, that beautiful sound?

(“That Beautiful Sound” Song by Alex Brightman, Beetlejuice Original Broadway)

In 2019, I was lucky enough to see the Broadway-bound performance of Beetlejuice at the National Theatre in Washington DC before the show landed at the Wintergarden Theatre in New York. The story follows a deceased couple who try to haunt the new inhabitants of their former home and call for help from a devious ghost named Betelgeuse (pronounced Beetlejuice) who is summoned by saying his name three times. School of Rock Tony nominee Alex Brightman took on the title role of the foul-mouthed ghost, with Sophia Anne Caruso as Lydia Deetz, the goth teen who summons him in the hopes of scaring off her parents.

If screams and ghosts don’t bring a fright, perhaps a murderous, disfigured man living in the catacombs beneath an opera house will suffice?

Past the point of no return

No backward glances

Our games of make-believe are at an end

Past a thought of "if" or "when"

No use resisting

Abandon thought and let the dream descend

What raging fires shall flood the soul

What rich desire unlocks its door

What sweet seduction lies before us

Past the point of no return

The final threshold

What warm unspoken secrets

Will we learn

Beyond the point of no return (“The Point of No Return” Song by Andrew Lloyd Webber)

Oh, the Phantom! My dark prince! A long-running show, it’s one that I’ll see every time the chance presents. (Sidenote: "The Point of No Return" – and the whole soundtrack – sound best when driving across a bridge at dusk in a convertible.)

The Phantom of the Opera tells the story of a masked figure who haunts the Paris Opera House. He falls in love with an innocent young singer named Christine and devotes himself to making her a star by fostering her talent and using all the devious methods at his command.

The story is classic in its battle between good and evil. And even though I realize that perhaps it was not about love but obsession, I would have wholeheartedly chosen the phantom over Raoul. Ignoring manipulative murder in the form of falling chandeliers, hangings, and strangulations, I would have delighted in the dark romance full of chemistry – and my new starring role.

Maybe a man-eating plant is more your nightmare? Feed me!

Don't you talk to me about old King Kong

You think he's the worst, well, you're thinkin' wrong

Don't talk to me about Frankenstein

He got a temper, ha! He ain't got mine

You know I don't come from no black lagoon

I'm from past the stars and beyond the moon

You can keep The Thing, keep The It,

Keep The Creature, they don't mean shit

I got one style, major moves

I got the stuff and I think that proves

You better move it out

Nature calls

You got the point?

I'm gonna bust your balls (“Mean Green Mother from Outer Space” Song by lan Menken and Howard Ashman)

Little Shop of Horrors is a black comedy horror story revolving around a meek floral shop employee named Seymour. Seymour develops a crush on his sweet and ditzy co-worker, Audrey, who dreams of escaping an abusive relationship. Seymour tries to improve business with a strange plant that he has nursed back to health. Naming the plant after his crush, he discovers that it feeds on blood and wants more, more, more.

With a carnivorous plant from outer space hellbent on human destruction and a dentist with an innate talent for causing pain, this gory but funny musical is another great choice for the Halloween season.

The next stop on our macabre Broadway tour begins in a London insane asylum and involves Murder! Murder!

It’s a sin with no name

Like a hand in a flame

And our senses proclaim

It’s a dangerous game

A darker dream

That has no ending

that's so unreal

You believe that its true

A dance of death

Out of a mystery tale

The frightened princess

doesn't know what to do. (“Dangerous Game” Song by Leslie Bricusse and Frank N. Wildhorn)

This musical, based on the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, is my all-time favorite. In fact, I’ve seen it on stage three times and often play the soundtrack in my car. My favorite performance starred American Idol’s Constantine Maroulis with Deborah Cox. Chills race up and down my body when I hear "Dangerous Game," "This is the Moment," and other songs from the Jekyll and Hyde soundtrack.

Trying to cure his father’s mental illness by separating “good” from “evil” in the human personality, Dr. Jekyll unintentionally creates an alternate personality of pure evil, Mr. Hyde, who wreaks murderous havoc on the city of London. As his fiancée Emma becomes fearful for her betrothed, a prostitute named Lucy finds herself dangerously involved with both the doctor and his alter ego. Fighting to control Hyde before he takes over for good, Jekyll must discover a cure for the monster he has created in his own mind.

My final card to play on this excursion of evil - if this has not yet given you a scare - involves a razor and some very interesting pie ingredients.

Rest now, my friend

Never you fear, Mr. Todd

Soon I'll unfold you

You can move in here, Mr. Todd

Soon you'll know

Will be yours!

My lucky friend!

I'm your friend! And you're mine!

Till now your shine

Don't they shine beautiful?

Was merely silver!

Silver's good enough for me, Mr. T

Friend

You shall drip rubies

You'll soon drip precious

Rubies

At last, my arm is complete again! (“My Friends” Song by by Stephen Sondheim)

Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of Fleet Street, is a must see for those who want a Halloween scare. I’ve seen the full production twice and, this last July, a modified version with the National Symphony Orchestra at Wolf Trap Performing Arts Center in Virginia. My husband and I even dressed the part for a former Zombiecon celebration.

After hard years in exile for a crime he didn't commit, Benjamin Barker, now Sweeney Todd, returns to London to find his wife dead and his daughter in the hands of the evil Judge Turpin. In his fury, Sweeney goes on a murderous rampage on all London. With the help of Mrs. Lovett and her pie shop, he opens a barber business where he lures his victims and ends their lives with a flick of his razor.

Even though it’s improbable that you can attend one of these shows in person this season, I highly recommend enjoying the soundtracks or film versions.

“It’s showtime!”