Heathers the Musical

Currently in revival, Heathers The Musial, based on the cult classic film Heathers (1988), written by Daniel Waters, has rocketed onto New World Stages with fans screaming in delight. The production with book, music and lyrics by Kevin Murphy and Laurence O’Keefe first opened at the same Off-Broadway venue in 2014 with Andy Fickman directing. However, O’Keefe and Murphy continually reworked the production honing it to a fine brilliance during the last decade. Most recently in a limited engagement in the West End, it finally transferred to New World Stages. There, it has been extended until January 25, 2026 for good reason.

The 2025 version incorporates changes, including new songs, created in the intervening decade. The concept and subject matter appeals because the sardonic musical comedy satirizes the cruel power dynamics prevalent in high schools across America. Unless one is a part of the ruling elite and finds popularity and favor, the typical high school social machine grinds you up as trash. Admittedly, each high school has its own peculiar “selektion process” of those who “matter,” and those who “don’t.”

How do communities fight this? In a backlash, one character’s notion to purge the toxicity is to “burn everything down.” However, exchanging one form of hatred, nihilism and supremacy for another can create a never-ending cycle of retribution as the musical indicates. Can anything be done?

In its latest version this terrific, complex production asks and answers these questions. Additionally the top notch performances, music (Will Joy), choreography, (Gary Lloyd, Stephanie Klemons), Andy Fickman’s direction and the design elements cohere with near perfect unity to present an overall message. Despite the darkness present in all of us, our humanity has a softer side. We have only to manifest it with courage in the face of bigotry.

The musical opens as narrator/diarist Veronica Sawyer (the amazing Lorna Courtney) considers the negative transformations her classmates have gone through since kindergarten (“Beautiful”). Brainy, misfit Veronica is a senior at Westerberg High in1989, Ohio. Though Veronica believes herself to be a good person (she befriended uncool Martha Dunnstock {Erin Morton}), she must navigate around her classmates who welcome each other with the insults, “FREAK! SLUT! LOSER! SHORT BUS! BULL-DYKE! STUCK-UP! HUNCHBACK!”

Though Veronica blames this toxicity on their growing up and losing their innocence, we wonder if anyone in authority can rein in the students’ brutality toward each other? Therein lies one conflict. Of course the power dynamic is sub rosa. Because students maintain its secrecy, clueless parents and teachers like Ms. Fleming (Kerry Butler), don’t satisfactorily deal with the horrible social culture. Thus, nothing changes.

It is precisely because those in authority can’t influence the students that the three “Heathers” (McKenzie Kurtz, Kiara Lee covered for Oliva Hardy when I saw the show, and Elizabeth Teeter) rule with ferocity (“Candy Store”). In order to lift up their own status, the Heathers make everyone else feel worthless. Ironically, the students electrify the Heathers’ power grid because they fear their wrath and retribution. What would happen if they didn’t bow to Queen Heather Chandler?

The situation looks up for Veronica when she uses her talent for forgery to save the Heathers from detention. As a result they take her under their wing, give her a make-over and lift her status to “beautiful.” However, she must set up her friend Martha for a grand humiliation at an upcoming party (“Big Fun”) to maintain her popularity.

In a counter punch to stop the Heathers’ obnoxious reign of terror, the new student J.D. (the superb Casey Likes) provides another perspective. He criticizes Veronica for selling out Martha to the, “Swatch-dogs and Diet-Cokeheads.” Likes’ JD, dressed in a trench coat and dripping charisma and courage dazzles, a rebel against the stifling social order.

Because JD, stands up to popular jocks, Ram Sweeney (Xavier McKinnon) and Kurt Kelly (Code Ostermeyer), Veronica becomes interested in him (“Fight For Me”). They form an attachment (“Freeze Your Brain”), and J.D. helps Veronica avoid becoming the “laughing stock” of the school (“Dead Girl Walking”). However, Veronica’s innocent plan to apologize to Heather Chandler for throwing up on her outfit backfires. Mistakenly, Veronica gives Heather the wrong cup filled with drain cleaner (JD’s instigation), instead of the cup with her usual prairie oyster hangover cure.

This unexpected twist brings Veronica and JD closer. But their love relationship fueled by a conspiratorial cover-up of Heather’s death leads to more diabolical behavior. With JD’s help Veronica forges a suicide note imitating Heather’s handwriting. The clever, ironic lyrics to dead Heather’s suicide note, in “The Me Inside of Me,” resonate hysterically. (“No one thinks a pretty girl has substance. I am more than just a source of handjobs. No one sees the me inside of me.”) Easily duped, despite Chandler’s horrible nature, the school community believes in her vulnerability and unhappiness.

The suicide note elevates Heather to even greater status as a flawed, lonely teenager like everyone else. Meanwhile, the ghost of dead Heather haunts Veronica and cryptically comments while Heather Duke takes Chandler’s place as “Queen.” In a downward spiral Heather Duke’s reign turns out to be worse than Chandler’s. Duke sets up Veronica to be sexually attacked by Ram and Kurt. Though Veronica foils the rape, she and JD plot revenge. Once again the vengeance which begins innocently in Veronica’s misguided mind turns deadly in JD’s hands.

After Veronica and JD tally up two more “accidental” murders, they write believable suicide notes that Ram and Kurt were gay. Neatly, they’ve cleansed the school of three of the most brutal kids in the social hierarchy. In Act I’s closing number (“Our Love is God”), they affirm their love and righteous acts of “justice” with the mind-blowing lyrics: “We can start and finish wars. We’re what killed the dinosaurs. We’re the asteroid that’s overdue.” As JD tells Veronica he’d give his life for her, Veronica cannot resist his love and allure. Energized by her and their new found form of justice, JD’s nihilism continues in Act II. Only Veronica can stop him.

With Andy Fickman’s superior staging and humorous, well-paced timing, the production flies by at two hours and 30 minutes. The ensemble’s exuberance, voices and dancing are cracker-jack, the arrangements super. Memorable throughout, Lorna Courtney sustains her portrayal of Veronica’s transformation from “good person” to JD’s unwitting accomplice to murder, and back again. As JD Casey Likes is Courtney’s match pitting his phenomenal voice against hers with every song. As a couple they shine, reminding us that evil can be seductive.

Finally, McKenzie Kurtz lifts the ironic character of Heather Chandler in death with fine pacing and great humor. She aligns in a perfect contrast with Erin Morton’s kind-hearted, loving Martha Dunnstock, who would be everyone’s friend if they they opened their eyes to her goodness. Standout numbers “My Dead Gay Son,” (Ben Davis, Cameron Loyal are hysterical) and “Shine a Light” (the funny Kerry Butler) are LOL. “Kindergarten Boyfriend” (Erin Morton is spot-on authentic) resonates with pathos.

Thematically, Water’s film and the Heathers musical (2014) were harbingers of today’s cultural divisions. With prescience they exposed the danger of allowing high school communities to be breeding grounds of hate and discrimination, fostered by a school’s particular “master race” clique. If high schools reflect the larger culture, then social media exponentially spreads their poison. Is it any wonder that insults, hate and bigotry are embraced by “seleckt” political groups to gain votes? Spawned in community settings and reinforced by boards of education in their curriculums, hate and discrimination become normalized.

Heathers the Musical reveals the social construct which accepted a “president” who uses insults, bullying tactics and death threats to get what he wants. It also reveals a better answer than JD’s nihilism in the concluding song. It’s up to us to “make it beautiful.”

Heathers The Musical runs 2 hours 30 minutes with one intermission at New World Stages. https://heathersthemusical.com/new-york/about-ny/