Charlotte Thornton reviews Heathers: The Musical, produced by GMG productions, music, book and lyrics by Kevin Murphy and Laurence O’Keefe, directed by Andy Fickman, choreographed by Gary Lloyd, with musical direction from Martine Wengrow, at the James Hay Theatre, Friday 15 May 2026.
Heathers is Mean Girls with murder. High school outcast Veronica Sawyer abandons her best friend for the titular trio of bullies and falls for bad boy Jason “JD” Dean, who wants to take bloody revenge on their tormenters. The original 1988 film starring Winona Ryder was a box office failure, but it gained enough of a cult following to receive a musical adaptation which made it Off-Broadway in 2014. The musical has found a cult following of its own, in girls too troubled for Legally Blonde and not troubled enough for Spring Awakening.
Heathers: The Musical sands off a few edges: it straightens out Veronica’s moral code and gives JD a more tragic backstory. Heathers: The Musical might not be as vicious as its source material, but it is still the darkest, raunchiest, most profane modern musical your teenage daughter will probably love.
Ōtautahi Christchurch is the first stop on an Australia & New Zealand Tour of the 2014 Off-Broadway version, directed by Andy Fickman, now starring an Australian-Kiwi cast. It’s an electrifying and thoroughly professional production from top to bottom. The cast are uniformly fantastic singers, supported by a band of seven musicians (including superb musical director Martine Wengrow on keys). The Westerberg High set by David Shields is slick and versatile. The sound design by Dan Samson is very special – a highlight being a faint echo effect added to the microphone channels of ‘ghost’ characters.
The casting of Emma Caporaso as Veronica deserves enthusiastic praise and probably an award. There’s a touch of Fleabag in her Veronica: layers of dry humour and easy charm slowly peel away to reveal a strange, frightened girl with bad taste in boyfriends. Caporaso’s singing is scarily good. She can deliver an astounding high belt and a delicate serenade with equal success, often within the same song. The story demands that Veronica act as a magnet, capturing the attention of every single character. In Caporaso’s hands this is completely believable.
The main cast is supported by a long list of capable understudies, one of whom takes on a leading role on opening night. Mackenzie Htay’s performance as JD takes me back to my Tumblr days. He walks with a pronounced hunch, looming over Veronica like Edward Cullen standing over a sleeping Bella Swan in Twilight. While most of the male vocals sit fully within the crisp, pleasing comfort zone of modern tenor singing, Htay gives his vocals an enticing emo boy lilt. In a sea of Jonathan Groffs, Htay is Fall Out Boy’s Patrick Stump. By Act 2, his performance edges into cartoonish territory, but one that supports the reading of JD as a poisonous, dangerous figure as outlined in “I Say No”: “You are a drug, you are a poison pill / I’ve got to kick this habit now or else I never will.”
The original movie imbues a Heavenly Creatures (Heavenly Bleachers?) quality into its central “love story,” since Veronica is more complicit. The musical clears up her motivations and warms up her personality, which turns her twisted romance with JD into a commentary on abusive relationships. How can you tell if a “bad boy” is dangerous or just intense? How long until you become the target?
The gruesome plot only works comedically if there’s some schadenfreude to the bullies’ fate. These performers sell the hell out of it. Queen bee Heather Chandler is played by Aotearoa New Zealand-born performer Calista Nelmes. Her vocals are smooth and inviting, then smack you in the face when the time is right – much like how Chandler stalks the lunchroom. Nelmes’ belt on “Candy Store” is supported by exquisitely girly harmonies from Heathers Duke (Amélia Rojas, vocal prodigy at only 20 years old) and McNamara (Abigail Sharp, surely seeing Elle Woods in her future) which surpass the vocals on the original soundtrack. The audience favourites, and rightly so, are himbo duo Kurt (Nic Van Lits, golden retriever energy) and Ram (David Cuny, uncanny Patrick Schwarzenegger lookalike). The jock archetype can easily become stale, but these two never do. Van Lits and Cuny deliver such a wide range of hilarious gestures and quips that I found myself laughing the moment they entered any scene.
Mel O’Brien shines as the sweet, put-upon Martha Dunstock. She delivers the solo ballad “Kindergarten Boyfriend” with light and shade. A professional musical production can sometimes feel like a runaway train, the story pushing forward so quickly you are unable to catch your breath. This production avoids that fate by finding moments of stillness and silence during even the most intense numbers. My favourite of these moments is one out of time, in which Ms Fleming (a charismatic Zoe Gertz) pauses “Shine a Light” to drag an audience member into her confession of shame. It proves that there is no one on this stage (or behind it) with an easy job. Every role must be exhausting, yet it never shows. The ensemble is uniformly brilliant. Most of them are understudies for three or four roles, the thought of which makes my head hurt more than JD’s slushy in “Freeze Your Brain”.
And now… a moment for the accents. I am unreasonably picky about theatre accents. They’re tough, but they’re worth the effort. This Heathers: The Musical production is the most impressive accent work I’ve ever heard from a theatrical cast. About halfway through I started to wonder if I’d misread something, because they had to all be from Los Angeles, right? Reader, almost all are from Down Under. I still can’t believe it.
This tour is as good as musical productions can get. I recommend Heathers: The Musical for all adults and some teenagers. It depends on the teenager. Don’t worry that it might be a corrupting influence – the script takes great pains to emphasise its strong anti-murder stance, and the joyful curtain call is evidence of a happy enough ending. Just keep in mind that Heathers: The Musical has a body count, in both senses of the term.
Heathers: The Musical runs until Sunday 24 May before touring Wellington and Auckland.
Flat City Field Notes 