Heathers: The Musical

Heathers: The Musical
Off-Broadway Poster
Music	Laurence O'Keefe Kevin Murphy
Lyrics	Laurence O'Keefe Kevin Murphy
Book	Laurence O'Keefe Kevin Murphy
Basis	1988 film Heathers
Productions	2010 New York Concert 2013 Hollywood 2014 Off-Broadway 2015 San Francisco Sydney

Heathers: The Musical is a rock musical with music, lyrics, and a book by Laurence O'Keefe and Kevin Murphy and based on the 1988 cult film Heathers. After a sold-out Los Angeles tryout, the show had a production Off-Broadway in 2014.

Synopsis

Act 1

It's the first day of school, 1989, and seventeen-year-old Veronica Sawyer is frustrated with the hellish competitive social hierarchy at Westerburg High School, where nerds and underclassmen are pushed around by brutish, idiot jocks like Ram Sweeney and Kurt Kelly. After trying to defend her best friend, the cheerful, overweight Martha Dunnstock (cruelly renamed "Martha Dumptruck" by the uncreative Kurt), Veronica longs for the days of elementary school when life was simple and everyone was friends. She wishes desperately to be above the drama, but there is only one elite clique who can do that: the Heathers, the three most beautiful, most popular girls in school. They are the weak-willed head cheerleader Heather McNamara; the sullen, bulimic yearbook committee chair Heather Duke; and the "mythic bitch" queen of the school, Heather Chandler. When Veronica uses her talents as a forger to get the Heathers out of detention, Chandler recognizes her potential and gives her a make-over, elevating her to a member of their inner circle ("Beautiful").

Veronica soon realizes that popularity is a double edged sword when Heather Chandler discovers that Martha has had a crush on Ram Sweeney since he kissed her in kindergarten. She orders Veronica to forge a romantic note from him, and gives it to Martha. She tries to stop them, but backs down when the Heathers threaten to destroy her social life ("Candy Store"). Their threats are witnessed by a mysterious, trenchcoat-wearing, Baudelaire-quoting new kid, Jason "J.D." Dean, who criticizes Veronica for betraying her friend in exchange for popularity. Ram and Kurt take the opportunity to pick a fight with him, and he unexpectedly fights back and defeats them. Watching the fight, Veronica finds herself attracted to the stranger ("Fight for Me"). At Veronica's house, Chandler ridicules her for being into someone below her social status, and subtly insults her parents, who aren't sure they like their daughter's new friends ("Candy Store (Reprise)").

Veronica meets J.D. again in a 7-Eleven on her way to Ram's homecoming party. They hit it off, and he flirtatiously extols the virtues of the Slurpee, explaining he uses the brain-freeze to numb the pain of his troubled relationship with his father, the absence of his dead mother, and his nomadic lifestyle. ("Freeze Your Brain").

Ram and Kurt's macho fathers leave for a fishing trip, roughing their sons up on the way out the door in a similar fashion to the way their sons treat the kids at school. With his folks gone, Ram starts the party, which quickly grows out of control as Veronica gets increasingly drunk. ("Big Fun"). Martha shows up, thinking Ram invited her because of the note, but is cruelly rebuffed. The Heathers try to prank her dressing up a pig-shaped piñata to resemble her, but Veronica stops them and throws the piñata in the pool. She angrily resigns from the Heathers, but Heather Chandler refuses to allow her to walk away, threatening to ruin her social life. In response, the inebriated Veronica vomits on Heather's shoes, enraging her, and the frightened students turn their backs on her. Feeling she has nothing to lose now, she breaks into J.D.'s bedroom and seduces him, losing her virginity ("Dead Girl Walking").

After having a nightmare about Chandler tormenting her ("Very"), Veronica decides to go to her house to apologize, with J.D. tagging along. Heather orders Veronica to make her a hangover cure, and J.D., apparently jokingly, suggests putting toxic drain cleaner in it as revenge. Veronica tells him to stop, but in a distracted moment, grabs the wrong cup. J.D. notices the mix-up, but says nothing as Chandler humiliates Veronica, rejects her apology, drinks the hangover cure, and dies. Fearing no one will believe it was an accident, Veronica freaks out until J.D. spots Heather's copy of The Bell Jar. He convinces Veronica to forge a suicide note. In the process, she makes Heather sound more deep and complex than she actually was, gaining her sympathy from the entire school and inspiring ex-hippie teacher Miss Fleming to start a school-wide campaign to prevent teenage suicide ("The Me Inside Of Me").

With Heather Chandler dead, Heather Duke breaks free of her subservient status and assumes control. Veronica and J.D. watch her give sob story interviews on multiple news channels (and in multiple languages) at J.D.'s house, where Veronica witnesses first-hand J.D.'s tense relationship with his father, demolitions expert Big Bud Dean. Veronica's displeasure at the new status quo is equaled only by that of Chandler herself, who appears as a ghost to berate Veronica from beyond the grave. Veronica gets a call from Heather McNamara, begging her to come to the cemetery, and when she gets there, she discovers the Heathers locked in a car, trying to fend off a drunk Kurt and Ram. It emerges that they escaped date-rape by the intoxicated football players, who are desperate for sexual relief, by telling them that they can have Veronica. The boys aggressively beg her to have sex with them ("Blue"), but she escapes by feeding them more alcohol until they pass out. The next day, Veronica discovers that Heather Duke has taken on Heather Chandler's role of leader, as she takes Heather Chandler's red scrunchie (a symbol of her power) from her locker, and that Ram and Kurt have told everyone that she had sex with them ("Blue (Reprise)"), and she is branded a slut by the other students ("Beautiful (Reprise)").

J.D. comforts her, and enlists Veronica's help in plan to get revenge on the two jocks. She lures them into the woods with the promise of making their lies about her come true, where J.D. explains that they will shoot them with special "Ich Lüge" (German for "I'm Lying") bullets which cause temporary unconsciousness, putting them out long enough for cops to find a forged suicide note proclaiming they're gay lovers. Once the jocks are in position, J.D. shoots Ram, but Veronica misses Kurt, who runs into the woods pursued by J.D. As Veronica realizes Ram is dead and the bullets are real, J.D. shoots Kurt down in cold blood, and proclaims his undying love to the horrified Veronica ("Our Love is God").

Act 2

At Ram and Kurt's joint funeral, their fathers unexpectedly decide to accept their sons' homosexuality, even more unexpectedly reveal their own past love affair, and vow to work towards making the world a more tolerant place. ("My Dead Gay Son"). Seeing this as a sign their murders are making the world a better place, J.D. tries to convince Veronica they should make Heather Duke their next target. She refuses, provoking a furious rant about the way society creates pain and misery. Sensing the deeper pain driving his fury, Veronica asks J.D. how his mother died, and learns that he watched her commit suicide by walking into a building his father was demolishing just before it was blown up. Attempting to get through to him, Veronica begs him to give up trying to change the world through violence and live a normal life with her ("Seventeen").

Martha asks Veronica for help breaking into J.D.'s locker, as she suspects he murdered the footballers, insisting Ram couldn't be gay because of the love note he wrote her. Knowing that if Martha found anything incriminating she would become J.D.'s next target, and goaded on by the mocking ghosts of Heather Chandler and the football players, Veronica drives Martha away by confessing she wrote the note and that Ram thought she was a loser. Martha runs off in tears.

School guidance counselor Pauline Fleming holds a televised therapy assembly in order to aid the student body and prevent any more suicides from happening, and coincidentally to promote Fleming's controversial therapeutic techniques on live television ("Shine a Light"). Heather McNamara is the only one to step forward, confessing she's thought about killing herself due to the overwhelming peer pressure she faces every day ("Lifeboat"). Duke turns on her, whipping the other students into mocking her. Veronica lashes out at Ms. Fleming for taking advantage of the publicity and not protecting McNamara, and in her rage, she confesses to the murders. No one believes her, thinking she is just desperate for attention. She follows McNamara to the school bathroom, where she catches her attempting to overdose on a bottle of sleeping pills. ("Shine a Light (Reprise)") Veronica stops her in time and comforts her. J.D. tries to talk her into killing Duke again, and Veronica realizes he is carrying around a loaded gun. Realizing how unstable he is, Veronica breaks up with him. They argue, and he accidentally points the gun at her. She storms out, leaving him alone, as the other students (including Heather McNamara) come out revealing that there is going to be a pep rally later that night ("Westerburg Cheer").

J.D. confronts Duke with evidence that she and Martha were friends when they were children, and blackmails her into getting all the kids at school to sign a petition declaring a holiday in remembrance of the victims of suicide. Martha, unnoticed by everyone and mourning her beloved Ram, tries to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge ("Kindergarten Boyfriend"). She survives with a few broken bones, and her suicide is derided as a failed attempt to imitate the popular kids. Veronica rushes to the hospital as the ghosts taunt her with the realization that she has become as awful as Heather Chandler was ("Yo Girl"). When she returns home her parents confront her, telling her J.D. has told them she is suicidal, and she realizes J.D. plans to make her his next victim. He breaks into her room, wielding a gun, as she barricades herself in the closet. Increasingly unhinged, he tells her he's changed his mind about killing her, believing the solution to their problem is to kill the student body that's brainwashed her. He reveals that the petition, signed by every student at Westerberg, was actually a disguised suicide note, and he plans to blow up the school while everyone's at a pep rally, making it look like a mass suicide. Growing impatient, he breaks open the door, and finds Veronica dangling from a noose. Grief-stricken, he rushes out to complete his plan in her memory ("Meant to Be Yours").

Veronica, however, has faked her suicide, and grabs a croquet mallet to put an end to J.D.'s madness, even if she has to die in process ("Dead Girl Walking (Reprise)"). She confronts him as he's setting up the bomb in the boiler room underneath the gym. She begs him one final time to stop, but he refuses to listen, and she attacks him. In their struggle, his gun goes off, and J.D. collapses with a bullet in his gut. Having no idea how to disarm the bomb, Veronica takes it out to the empty football field, intending to save the other students by sacrificing herself. J.D., still alive, follows her and convinces her to let him take the bomb instead ("I Am Damaged"), asking her to do something good with her life. The bomb goes off, killing J.D. and leaving everyone else unharmed.

Returning to the school singed but alive, Veronica takes the red scrunchie from Heather Duke, tying it in her own hair, and declares to the student body that the era of constant ridicule and belittlement is over. Veronica invites Martha and Heather McNamara to hang out, rent a movie, and simply be kids for a little while before their childhoods are over ("Seventeen (Reprise)").

Musical numbers

Act 1

• Beautiful – Veronica and Students
• Candy Store – H. Chandler, H. McNamara, and H. Duke
• Fight for Me – Veronica and Students
• Candy Store (Tag) † – H. Chandler, H. McNamara, and H. Duke
• Freeze Your Brain – J.D.
• Big Fun – Ram, Kurt, Veronica, H. Chandler, H. McNamara, H. Duke, and Ensemble
• Dead Girl Walking – Veronica and J.D.
• Very † – H. Chandler and Ensemble
• The Me Inside of Me – H. Chandler, Veronica, Cops, Ms. Fleming, and Company
• Blue – Ram, Kurt, H. McNamara, and H. Duke
• Blue (Reprise) † – Ram, Kurt, H. Duke, H. McNamara, and Students
• "Beautiful (Reprise)" † – Students
• Our Love Is God – J.D., Veronica, and Kurt

Act 2

• Prom or Hell? † – Veronica
• My Dead Gay Son – Ram's Dad, Kurt's Dad, and Mourners
• Seventeen – Veronica and J.D.
• Shine a Light – Ms. Fleming and Students
• Lifeboat – H. McNamara
• Shine a Light (Reprise) – H. Duke and Students
• Westerburg Cheer † – H. McNamara and Students
• Kindergarten Boyfriend – Martha
• Yo Girl – H. Chandler, Ram, and Kurt
• Meant to Be Yours – J.D. and Students
• Dead Girl Walking (Reprise) – Veronica, J.D., and Students
• I Am Damaged – J.D. and Veronica
• Seventeen (Reprise) – Veronica, Martha, H. McNamara, and Company

† Not featured on World Premiere Cast Recording

Background

The show's director, Andy Fickman, had been working with Daniel Waters (the screenwriter of the film) on the musical. After seeing Laurence O'Keefe's work with Legally Blonde and how he transitioned film to theatre, he decided to pair him with Reefer Madness collaborator Kevin Murphy. Flickman said of the experience, "we found that Heathers gave a great deal of opportunity for '80s commentary and a great chance for music and storytelling".

Productions

Pre Off-Broadway

There was a reading sometime in 2010, with Kristen Bell as Veronica, Christian Campbell as J.D., and Jenna Leigh Green, Corri English, and Christine Lakin as the Heathers.

Joe's Pub

On September 13–14, 2010, it was presented as a concert at Joe's Pub. The show was directed by Andy Fickman, and it starred Annaleigh Ashford as Veronica Sawyer, Jeremy Jordan as Jason Dean, Jenna Leigh Green as Heather Chandler, Corri English as Heather McNamara, and Christine Lakin as Heather Duke, James Snyder as Kurt Kelly, PJ Griffith as Ram Sweeney, Julie Garnyé as Martha "Dumptruck" Dunnstock, Eric Leviton as Ram's Dad, Kevin Pariseau as Kurt's Dad/Principal, Jill Abramovitz as Ms. Fleming/Veronica's Mom, Tom Compton as Hipster Dork/Preppy Kid, Alex Ellis as Goth Girl/English Teacher/Young Republicanette, and Kelly Karbacz as Stoner Chick/School Psychologist.

Los Angeles

The show played at the Hudson Backstage Theatre in Los Angeles for a limited engagement on the weekends from September 21, 2013 to October 6, 2013. The cast included Barrett Wilbert Weed as Veronica, Ryan McCartan as J.D., Sarah Halford as Heather Chandler, Kristolyn Lloyd as Heather Duke, and Elle McLemore as Heather McNamara.

Off-Broadway

In 2013, It was announced that Heathers: The Musical would be brought to Off-Broadway, previews beginning in March at New World Stages. Coincidentally, New World is also the name of the original film's distributor. In February 2014, the cast was announced. It included Barrett Wilbert Weed, Ryan McCartan, and Elle McLemore reprising their roles as Veronica, J.D, and Heather McNamara, respectively, with new additions to the cast being Jessica Keenan Wynn as Heather Chandler and Alice Lee as Heather Duke. The show began previews on March 15, 2014 and opened on March 31, 2014.

A cast album was recorded on April 15–16, 2014 with an in-store and digital release of June 17, 2014. It was released a week early on June 10, 2014.

Heathers: The Musical played its final performance at New World Stages on August 4, 2014.

Roles and Casts

Major Casts

Character	Los Angeles (2013)	Original Off-Broadway (2014)	Closing Off-Broadway	Understudies	Australian Cast
Veronica Sawyer	Barrett Wilbert Weed		Charissa Hodgeland	N/A	Hilary Cole
Jason "J.D." Dean	Ryan McCartan		Dave Thomas Brown	N/A	Stephen Madsen
Heather Chandler	Sarah Halford	Jessica Keenan Wynn		N/A	Lucy Maunder
Heather McNamara	Elle McLemore			N/A	Rebecca Hetherington
Heather Duke	Kristolyn Lloyd	Alice Lee	Kristolyn Lloyd	N/A	Hannah Fredericksen
Martha Dunnstock	Katie Ladner			N/A	Lauren McKenna
Kurt Kelly	Evan Todd*			N/A	Jakob Ambrose
Ram Sweeney	Jon Eidson			N/A	Vincent Hooper
New Wave Party Girl	Charissa Hogeland		Lauren Cipoletti	u/s Veronica, Heather Chandler, Heather Duke	Heather Manley
Young Republicanette	Cait Fairbanks			u/s Veronica, Heather McNamara, Heather Duke	Mitchell Hicks
Stoner Chick	Rachel Flynn			u/s Heather McNamara, Martha Dunstock, Ms. Fleming	Sage Douglas
Beleaguered Geek	Zach Bandler	Dustin Sullivan		u/s Kurt, Kurt's Dad	Stephen McDowell
Hipster Dork/Officer McCord	Trevor Shor	Dan Domenech		u/s JD, Kurt, Ram
Preppy Stud/Officer Milner	AJ Meijer			u/s Ram, Ram's Dad, Kurt's Dad
Bill Sweeney/Big Bud Dean/Coach Ripper	Rex Smith	Anthony Crivello		N/A	Mitchell Hicks
Paul Kelly/Mr. Sawyer/Principal Gowan	Zachary Ford	Daniel Cooney		N/A	Stephen McDowell
Mrs. Sawyer/Pauline Fleming	Rena Strober	Michelle Duffy		N/A	Sage Douglas
Swings	N/A	Molly Hager		u/s Martha Dunstock, Ms. Fleming
	N/A	Matthew Schatz		u/s JD, Kurt, Ram

* Although Evan Todd was the Kurt Kelly of record at the time of closing, the role of Kurt Kelly was played by Dan Domenech at the final performance.

Awards and nominations

Original Off-Broadway Production

Year	Award Ceremony	Category	Nominee	Result
2014	Drama Desk Awards	Outstanding Music	Laurence O'Keefe and Kevin Murphy	Nominated
		Outstanding Actress in a Musical	Barrett Wilbert Weed	Nominated
	Lucille Lortel Award	Outstanding Lead Actress in a Musical		Nominated
		Outstanding Choreographer	Marguerite Derricks	Nominated

External links

• Dead Gay Son on YouTube
• Kindergarten Boyfriend on YouTube
• Pictures of the cast at rehearsal