In 2020, Elizabeth Teeter was ready to move into the role of Lydia, the depressed daughter of the new owners of a haunted house, when the COVID-19 shutdown happened. She talked to Newsweek about her theatrical journey and, “Dead Mom,” her new music video from the show.
She told Newsweek, “I was in a couple of days of rehearsals back in 2020 before the shutdown, and then we all didn’t know if the show was coming back. And I was unsure if I was coming back. Everything was so up in the air, but I think it worked out for the best, because by getting to do the production now, we all got to come in on Day One and have rehearsals together, which is really a joy.”
As young as Teeter is, she already has an impressive list of theater credits. She is from St. Louis where she played Liesl in The Sound of Music at The Muny, which seats over 11,000 people; the Marquis seats a little over 1,600. So this actually is not the largest venue she has performed in. And, she said, “there’s a lot of great local theater in St. Louis, which I was lucky to grow up with.”
In New York, she told Newsweek, “on Broadway, I’ve done Mary Poppins, The Audience, The Crucible, and recently—well, I guess not as recently now—but pre-pandemic, I did the off-Broadway musical Secret Life of Bees. I was still coming back a lot to New York to audition. And after I just graduated high school and was moving out here for a gap semester to audition and take classes. And I was in Telsey [the casting agency] a lot.
“For Beetlejuice, I’d come in to read and sing for the creative team. It was kind of a quick process, in 2020.”
“And everything was going pretty smoothly until the shutdown. It’s been a wild ride because it was two years of not knowing if I’d ever get to do this part. So I like to say I got offered the role twice. To finally do it is so exciting, and I’m so grateful.”
Her off-Broadway experience with The Secret Life of Bees was also exciting. She told Newsweek, “It’s adapted from a book. And I love to read, and I love the book a lot. So getting to play that character was just amazing. It was my first time being a part of something that was a full-fledged production of something new. I did workshops of other things, and of course readings, but this was exciting because it was Sam Gold directing, Duncan Sheik who wrote the music, and Lynn Nottage did the book—she’s brilliant. Getting to have these people hand you new pages every day and ask for your input. and then change things based on you in the room was just such a crazy and wonderful experience.”
And there was a special complication for Teeter who told Newsweek, “I was a junior in high school at the time. I had left school to do the production. It was wild, because I remember I was trying to do my schoolwork at the end of the rehearsal days and the beginning of my day. So, we were in previews, and I was trying to take finals. I would take my final at 10 a.m. and then go in and have a preview rehearsal of the show, and it would be like, ‘Oh, we’re doing a new opening number today.’
“I loved coming in and having to do new lines and new songs with the talent that was in that show. It was just amazing.”
Preparing for the ‘Beetlejuice’ Experience
And then there is the Beetlejuice audience. She said, her fellow cast members tried to prepare her for the reaction they would get, saying things like, “‘I don’t think you’re fully going to understand how much people love the show,’ I had seen stuff on social media, and the minute I was announced, everyone was following me and all that kind of stuff.
“I tried to stay sane. I didn’t read anything. But the first night that we were back, I think, we were all saying this is the closest thing we’ll ever get to a rock concert: The downbeat dropped, and it was just screams. Everyone was screaming during the whole show, like every song, because they knew what was coming. They knew all the songs; they loved all the songs; they loved the characters. So every entrance got this warm applause, and people were on their feet. It was just one of the most surreal things. I was thinking, They know this show better than I do on my first performance.”
Musically, Beetlejuice was a big step for Teeter, who told Newsweek, “It’s a hard score. It’s definitely one of the biggest roles I’ve done in terms of movement and singing and everything; but the more you do it, the more comfortable you are. Within three months you feel your body and voice settle. Your body just starts to get more accustomed to it. It’s definitely a role and a show where we all have to take care of ourselves a lot and make sure we rest, especially now that we just switched our schedule to five-show weekends. It helps that we have such wonderful audiences that give us so much energy every night, and that we all love each other and have a great time. So anytime that someone’s having a rough night, we have such a good support system.”
Behind the ‘Dead Mom’ Video
The new video, “Dead Mom,” shows Teeter’s character Lydia in a rough emotional moment. Teeter told Newsweek, that the song “comes pretty early on. It’s Lydia’s first solo song in the show. So it’s sort of shot out of the gate and it’s, in a way, her introduction, her “I want” song, where you really kind of see what she’s going through: the grief over the loss of her mother, and the anger and pain she’s feeling.
“Her way of dealing with her grief and the loss of her mom is diving into and becoming obsessed with death, and this darkness. Whereas you know, some people like her father don’t want to talk about it and want to not think about it and not dwell on it at all.
“There is a lack of communication with her father: She is feeling alone, like she’s not seen. The song introduces all of those feelings of sadness, and anger and love and hope and of missing what she used to have. It’s sort of an explanation/foreshadowing of what her goal is and what she wants. Eventually, she goes on this journey to find her mom, but it also is about this re-connection with her father and finding joy in life again.
“So you have these two family members, who’ve lost someone important, who are dealing with grief in different ways and don’t know how to come together. And that’s sort of the center point of the show.”
Not to be lost in all this is that Beetlejuice really is a comedy. While some songs, such as “Dead Mom,” can often be dark, the book and direction keep the mood under control. And Teeter’s performance makes you want join her on Lydia’s journey, a journey to die for.
Beetlejuice is now playing at the Marquis Theatre, 211 West 46th Street, New York. For tickets and more information, go to BeetlejuiceBroadway.com.
