W
hen we decided to adapt
Heathers for the stage, we
wanted to create a show that
could be mounted just about anywhere.
That meant a simple set, simple lights.
Westerberg High is suggested by little
more than the sound of a school bell.
Throughout, we tailored the dialogue to
provide the audience with verbal clues
to remind them where we are: “Hiding
in the closet…?” “A Norwegian in the
boiler room…” “Drag the trigger bomb
out to the football field…”
We did this so we could afford to
pay for seven musicians and nineteen
singers making a big glorious noise.
Heathers is an emotional show with
a big, beating teenage heart – the
characters experience feelings so deep
and wide they can only be expressed
in song: Love, life and death. Despair,
forgiveness and reconciliation. These
primal themes require musical expression
on a large scale. If your production
budget can support cool stuff like
projections or realistic lockers or an
actual car on stage, by all means have
at it. But we strongly suggest you protect
your sound at all costs – we found a
great sound designer and equipment
a better investment than super-intricate
lighting or set design. Support the score
and your production will succeed.
The other big priority for us was the
costumes. For the original production,
that’s what set the time, place and tone.
The three Heathers and Veronica were
color-coordinated and fabulous. The
students and faculty were costumed
simply, but strongly evoked the ‘80s.
Heathers audiences want their MTV. We
suggest you give it to them.
Finally, a word about sincerity (lots,
please!) and camp (less, please). We
HEATHERS THE MUSICAL | theatrecr.org
think this material is best served by
real emotion and life-and-death stakes,
rather than mugging and bitchy posing.
There are great videos online of brilliant
drag queens lip-syncing wonderfully to
some of Heathers’ nastier songs. Their
mile-a-minute bump-‘n’-grind makes for
a hilarious cabaret act. But the full show
requires recognizable human beings,
lunging for safety and happiness and
love like a drowning man lunging for
a lifeboat. Their extraordinary yet real,
hopes, fears, pressures and crises drive
them to extraordinary actions.
So we recommend you avoid adding
ad-libs, inflating performances to cartoon
size, or inse rting extra lines or references
from the (admittedly brilliant) movie, and
we applaud when you focus on these
characters trying to make positive fixes in
their lives.
Yes, positive. Most villains don’t think
they’re villains; they rationalize villainous
behavior with “it’s what I had to do to fix
my problem.” So it is with Heathers. You’ll
get best results when your characters
avoid excessive or gratuitous cruelty
and negativity and instead play up
solutions and hope. And solutions and
hope, by stunning coincidence, are
what we discovered when we set out to
write Heathers, and what we hope your
audience will too.
Thanks very much. We are incredibly
grateful and honored you’re producing
our show. Dan Waters had an idea to tell
a story about a school as cruel as the real
world, and the kids who try to change
it. We have been lucky to make his story
sing, and now you get to join that story.
We hope you find it very big fun.
Everybody Wang Chung tonight,
Kevin Murphy & Laurence O’Keefe
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