By Kristen Nevarez Schweizer

February 24, 2026

If you grew up with Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice, you probably remember the feeling before you remember the plot: gothic comedy, grief, and chaos all braided together. The suburban wallpaper of normal life suddenly split open, revealing a neon-lit afterlife. That contrast was the secret sauce in 1988, in a film about grief disguised as a prank. A young couple dies and finds themselves stuck haunting their own home. Enter the new owners: the Deetz family, including Lydia, a teen who’s already fluent in the language of mourning. The dead try to scare the living out, fail, and hire an “afterlife professional” with the ethics of a raccoon in a trash can: Beetlejuice.

Broadway turned up the volume and built an entire theatrical funhouse around it, and the Beetlejuice: The Musical tour is here for a one-week haunt at the San Diego Civic Theatre from February 24 – March 1, 2026.

This musical version rose from the grave in 2018, premiering in Washington, D.C. at the National Theatre before taking its “whole being dead thing” to Broadway. It officially opened at the Winter Garden Theatre in 2019, and the industry took notice with eight Tony nominations, including Best Musical. Like its title character, the show has a history of returning. It reopened in 2022 at the Marquis Theatre after the pandemic shutdown and then staged a high-profile, limited Broadway engagement at the Palace Theatre—with the tour company essentially stepping onto Broadway for a final curtain call on that first national run. From there, a new North American tour kicked off in February, set to haunt 50 cities, with San Diego as its third stop.

In the film, Beetlejuice is the chaos engine. In the musical, he becomes something more dangerous: a charismatic, raspy narrator who refuses to let anyone compartmentalize their grief.

That’s the trick of a good adaptation. It doesn’t just recreate iconic moments; it musicalizes the emotional stakes. Lydia’s angst isn’t background texture, the vibe of the score—music and lyrics by Eddie Perfect, with a book by Scott Brown and Anthony King—which swings between poignancy and gleeful mayhem. Yet, this show continues circling back to what the story has always been about: what we do with loss, and who we become when nobody’s looking.

Also: Broadway loves a spectacle, and Beetlejuice is the kind of challenge that designers live to play. Sudden reveals. Big stage illusions. Loud, fast, maximalist design that feels like someone gave a haunted house a blank check. (And yes, you should be warned: the production notes explicitly call out haze/fog, sudden loud noises, pyrotechnics, and strobe lighting effects.)

Beetlejuice: The Musical is a party with catharsis. If you’ve been feeling the general heaviness of existing in 2026, there’s something medicinal about a show that names grief out loud, then punts it through a cartoon trapdoor. Plus, going to the Civic Theatre is one of San Diego’s largest collective art rituals: over 3,000 people gather to watch something beautiful and remember we have a living nervous system.

Broadway San Diego at the Civic Theatre
Beetlejuice: The Musical

February 24 – March 1, 2026

Recommended for ages 13+; children under 5 not admitted
Run time: about 2 hours, 30 minutes
Content advisory: strong language, mature subject matter, plus haze/fog, loud noises, pyro, strobes