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.

Last show of a crazy year for me. 211! Since my first go in July they’ve swapped Veronica and two Heathers, plus Kerry Butler was out. I wrote about this more completely back then, so this’ll be assorted follow-up thoughts.

The first time I saw this I got a little bored in the first act, and at the time I attributed it to my having gone in blind and not understanding what story they were telling. This time, even with the benefit of hindsight, I still went into intermission wondering “How is it possible that it’s only been an hour fifteen?”

Casey Likes has this fabulous way of holding his mouth agape and swiveling his head in vindicated laughter. I think he’s a pretty shrewd casting after Back to the Future in the sense that J.D. is sort of the evil twin of Marty McFly - 80s geeky boy wish fulfillment gone wrong - beating up the jocks - impressing the pretty girls with esoteric knowledge of the 7/11 drink selection - quoting Baudelaire as he does it

Jodie Steele joins the production as Heather Chandler after playing the role for years in and out of the West End

• i went back and forth on whether i preferred her to McKenzie Kurtz, who was a highlight for me on first viewing, and I think where i landed is it’s just a different dynamic
• Jodie has a different physicality in the role - she towers over the other Heathers, she’s got this wild wavy hair, she has more of a [dramatic] [aura/id/???] to her - longer, more dramatic gestures - with McKenzie it felt like the Heathers’ uniformity was punched up - I buy that she’s the leader of the mean girl clique, and the popular girls are all from the same blueprint - but with Jodie it feels like Chandler’s domineering personality is more fully realized. she’s more of an evil cartoon character
• i think Jodie probably hews closer to the role as written which clarifies the eventual arc for heather duke
• i am not sure that she has the same chemistry with other members of the cast, but that’s also not shocking - McKenzie left the show seemingly abruptly and Jodie just joined