Mean girls bring heavy cash to box offices. Once pre-teens have outgrown Wicked and its several knockoffs, teenagers and fans well into their twenties can’t get enough of mean-girl movies—and musical adaptations like the musical Mean Girls (2014, film 2004).
And like Heathers, where movie-house box offices instantly ca-ching-ca-chinged in 1989. Now one particular theater box office is going to ca-ching-ca-ching again. Heathers The Musical, adapted from the Daniel Waters film by Kevin Murphy and Laurence O’Keefe, is revived, with some adjustments, at New World Stages where it was first seen in 2014 for a four-month-plus run.
Yes, the current strenuous dust-off is going to be a sizzler if the preview I attended is anything to judge by. Not surprisingly, the audience was packed with Heathers fans, known as Corn Nuts, carrying on as if they’d just been handed multi-million-dollar checks to do with however they wished.
What were they making such a big deal over? A nasty dark plot that has more holes in it than the ozone layer. Three overbearingly mean-as-spleen Heathers (McKenzie Kurtz, Elizabeth Teeter, Olivia Hardy) and Veronica Sawyer (Lorna Courtney) a reluctant fourth member of the overbearing clique, make a practice of looking down their upwardly tilted noses at the other graduating Westerberg High School seniors of Sherwood, Ohio.
Along comes Jason ‘J.D.’ Dean (Casey Likes), whose father, Big Bud Dean (Ben Davis), has a good living blowing up buildings. As events (unbelievably) progress, J.D.—who puts initially successful romantic moves on Veronica—turns out to have inherited dad’s criminal DNA.
When Veronica continues doubting her Heathers liaisons, J.D., pistol-packing maverick that he is, figures out a way not only of ridding Veronica of group leader Heather Chandler but also snuffing bullying football jocks Ram Sweeney (Xavier McKinnon) and Kurt Kelly (Cade Ostermeyer).
Saying more about the profoundly ludicrous Heathers The Musical proceedings would be spilling spoilers, although a few may surface with the mention that forged suicide notes crop up in a town where whatever police force exists doesn’t concern itself with fingerprints or handwriting experts.
Pointless it would be to go on about this (cynically motivated?) delve into adolescent behavior, but it’s not out of line to say that Murphy and O’Keefe have hewed closely to Waters’ story and dialogue. For instance, the outburst “F*** me gently with a chainsaw,” which predates Elon Musk’s love of the tool, rises directly from the screenplay—and elicits raucous cheers. On the other hand, “Don’t pop a Tampon, Veronica” is evidently thunk up by Murphy and O’Keefe.
Furthermore, crowds will be reacting to a tuner (the terms used loosely) that neatly fits the definition of an all-too-recent burgeoning musicals category: Call ’em Screamusicals.
Screamusicals—several examples of which are currently on Broadway or have only recently shuttered—are cast pretty much exclusively with belters. When a solo is handed them, they’re prepared to plant their feet downstage center and belt from a score that, song to song, sounds not unlike the solo that preceded it. Each itty-bitty-gritty ditty is calculated to evoke huzzahs not so much for the melody or the lyric but for the (American Idol-influenced?) volume the singer attains.
The same screeching pertains to ensemble material, the lyrics of which are usually lost in the repetitious choreography. At the best of times perhaps sixty percent of the blared lyrics are intelligible. (The choreographer is Gary Lloyd, supplemented by Stephanie Klemons.)
As a result, lyrics are hardly what matter when belted voices rule. There is one lyric that may catch the ear and cling to it. The song, hawked by J.D. and Veronica, is the first-act closer called “Our Love is God” and trumpets this thought, “We can start and finish wars/We’re what killed the dinosaurs.” (Trivia: The married O’Keefe and Nell Benjamin, the Mean Girls lyricist, supplied the score for Legally Blonde in tandem but seem to have parted ways for subsequent mean-girls enterprises.)
By the way, screamusicals require first-rate complementary creative elements. That’s what patrons have been trained to accept as getting their money’s worth for sure. The proficient members of this creative team are set and costume designer David Shields, co-costume designer Siena Zoë Allen, lighting designer Ben Cracknell, and sound designer Dan Samson. Together, they let no one down.
As for the cast members, directed by Andy Fickman: They can’t be blamed for ardently supplying what they’ve been asked to supply. Not a one is deficient in full-bodied blast. Courtney, Kurtz, Teeter, and Hardy regularly keep their Heathers on the shrill. Likes is up there with them. School pariah Martha Dunnstock (Erin Morton) is appealingly dulcet starting “Kindergarten Boyfriend” but then nudged to bellow its ending measures. Kerry Butler adds her veteran force in two roles. Even Davis and Cameron Loyal, as the two jock dads, belt like nobody’s business on “My Dead Gay Son.”
Reviewer’s note: In a late plot turn J.D. utters the word “myriad” correctly. Only a minute later Veronica uses the words “myriad of” apparently not knowing what J.D. understands: that “myriad” is not a noun but an adjective. Anyway, the myriad reasons to see (and hear!) Heathers are small in number, whereas the myriad reasons not to see (and hear!) it—unless you’re a Corn Nut—are much larger.
Heathers opened July 10, 2025, at New World Stages and runs through January 25, 2026. Tickets and information: heathersthemusical.com
