“Can’t shake this feeling that I have / The worst is just around the bend,” go the lyrics of Billie Eilish‘s new song. Or, a least, of “Sally’s Song,” the number Eilish will be singing when she joins the cast of a live-to-picture concert/screening of “The Nightmare Before Christmas” in the Los Angeles area Halloween weekend.
Eilish was announced Friday as an additional cast member for the two “Nightmare” shows at Banc of California Stadium Oct. 29 and 31. Her Sally joins Jack Skellington, sung by the animated musical’s composer/songwriter, Danny Elfman, as well as “Weird Al” Yankovic singing the role of Lock and original voice cast member Ken Page reprising his filmic vocals as Oogie Boogie.
In the 1993 movie, Catherine O’Hara originated the role of Sally that Eilish will take on as a guest vocalist.
“I’m absolutely thrilled to have Billie joining up with the nightmare crew,” Elfman said in a statement. “This will be a real treat (not a trick).”
The “Nightmare Before Christmas” live-to-film concerts pick up a tradition that previously was produced at the Hollywood Bowl, with the last shows having been put on there in 2018.
In a June interview with PvNew, Elfman discussed reviving the production at a new venue after a planned 2020 engagement at the Bowl had to be called off, and talked about the possibility that this could be the last production, at least for a while.
“We had to cancel last year, of course,” Elfman said. “And this year, the Hollywood Bowl was not comfortable with whether they’d be up to full capacity yet. This promoter came and said, ‘We’ll do it.’ And I was like, okay. Because I don’t know how much… Every year I say this may be the last time. I don’t know how much longer I’ll do Jack. I don’t want to get into ‘I’ll do it every Halloween for the rest of my life!’ Because I did Halloween shows for 15 years with Oingo Boingo, and there’s something about me that’s like, oh my God, am I back in this? But I know that I did want to do him at least one more time, last year, and I was really ready for that. And when it fell through, it was really hard. Jack is definitely good for one more round, so I’m really happy about that and excited.”
The Banc of California concerts are being produced by Laura Engel and Richard Kraft of Kraft-Engel Management and Alison Ahart Williams, Tim Fox and Georgina Ryder of AMP Worldwide along with Disney Concerts.
The Oct. 29 show starts at 8 and the concert on Halloween night begins at a family-friendlier time of 6:30 p.m. Trick-or-treating stations and costume contests are planned for both nights. Tickets, priced in the $40-180 range, can be found here.
