Musical "Heathers" headed to stage
Thu Mar 12, 2009 1:01am EDT Email | Print | Share| Reprints | Single Page[-] Text
By Borys Kit
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Get ready for "Heathers: The Musical."
The influential 1988 dark comedy about high school, which launched the careers of Winona Ryder, Christian Slater and writer Daniel Waters, is stagebound in a production being developed by Andy Fickman, director of "Race to Witch Mountain," who is returning to his musical roots.
Fickman, who directed the musical "Reefer Madness," is working with "Reefer" partner Kevin Murphy, who is writing the "Heathers" lyrics and the book, and composer Larry O'Keefe, who earned a Tony nomination for best score for the Broadway version of "Legally Blonde."
The trio has worked on the production under the radar for some time. In a recent reading, "Veronica Mars" star Kristen Bell played the lead and Christian Campbell was J.D., with Jenna Leigh Green ("Wicked"), BrokeDown Cadillac lead singer Corri English and Christine Lakin (the CW's "Valentine") as the three Heathers.
The actors doing the reading will not necessarily do the musical; that depends on their availability when the play is mounted.
The project has the blessing of Waters, who controls the underlying rights to the material. Fickman said he sat down with the screenwriter early on "to make sure we were on the same page" and that Waters has seen the readings.
"He understood that our goals were to be creatively attuned to his original work," said Fickman.
The film offered many over-top-moments as well as choice lines, something Fickman is eager to bring out musically.
"'I love my dead gay son,'" Fickman quoted. "If you can get that into a song, then that is just perfect."
The creative team hopes to have a fully mounted regional production ready for 2010, followed ideally by a Broadway run.
(Editing by Sheri Linden at Reuters)
