Summary
Based on the 1989 cult film, this dark rock musical is set at Westerberg High, a school ruled by a ruthless trio of popular girls all named Heather. The story follows Veronica Sawyer, a misfit who navigates her way into their inner circle before falling for J.D., a mysterious and rebellious new student with a dangerous edge.
Saturday, July 19, 2025 at 2:00 PM Jul 19, 2025, 2:00 PM
I haven’t seen the movie and I wasn’t familiar with the story. 🤭 “Heathers” was a journey.
Veronica is struggling to survive high school—struggling so badly, in fact, that she’s willing to barter her very marketable forgery skills(!) for the protection of the titular clique, a trio of identically-named girls who rule the school. The Heathers, of course, demand that she pledge fealty by emotionally scarring her longtime bestie, Martha, and we’re pretty much off to the races from there.
If you, like me, don’t know what story they’re about to tell, then you, like me, might find that Act 1 moves in fits and starts. There were like four songs that I thought were about to take us into intermission.
And then Veronica and her trenchcoat mafia fantasy boyfriend, J.D., feed the alpha Heather some drain cleaner and kill her. Oh. Yeah, I didn’t know they were gonna do that. It turns into, like, a “be-careful-what-you-wish-for” morality musical about high school realpolitik. It’s dark! I wasn’t ready.
McKenzie Kurtz’s delightfully hateable Heather C. is smartly kept on hand to play Veronica’s omniscient chorus/taunting-frenemy-from-beyond in Act 2. She was probably my favorite, but this is a super deep cast, with too many standouts to name. Our leads, especially—Lorna Courtney (Veronica) and Casey Likes (J.D.)—are individually and interminglingly excellent. I also really enjoyed the costumes (the blazers!), the lighting (color coded for each Heather!), and the choreography (the way Veronica mimics the Heathers’ body language!).
The songs were a bit hit-or-miss for me, skewing positive, with some fun rock and pop influences and a complete lyrical insensibility that’ll make the Sondheim geeks spin. (Faves included “Beautiful,” “Dead Girl Walking,” “Seventeen.”) I didn’t love all the song choices, exactly—a surprising number of auxiliary characters get their own numbers, and this can feel fluffy-to-disorienting. (Who should I care about? Are the other Heathers major characters or not?)
With that in mind, the strongest criticism I can register is that it’s better as a complete package than it is moment-to-moment. This is true for the humor, too, which is dark and vulgar and mostly funny, but now and then lands a bit on the juvenile side of the fence.
But the vibes are good—really good. Such a charismatic cast, and the fans are really into it. It was kind of hard to find a ticket, and I understood why when I got there! Surely they’re eyeing a Broadway transfer? Most fun I’ve had at a show in a while.