Heathers: The Musical' Returns to NYC

Actor Casey Likes stars in the new off-Broadway revival of "Heathers: The Musical," based on the 1988 teen crime comedy film. He talks about the show, the film it's based on, and why the musical is ripe for revival.

Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart. I wanted to let you know about something coming up from All Of It's producers this weekend. The Public Song Project will reveal the winners of the 2025 contest in a radio special this Saturday at 7:00 PM. You'll hear some music, some conversations with the winners. You might even learn a little bit about the public domain while you're at it. All Of It producer Simon Close will host, and All Of It producer Luke Green is producing. That will be this Saturday at 7:00 PM.

Now, if you can't tune in live, you'll be able to stream it on demand after it airs. Tune into All Of It exactly one week for a recap that'll be happening next Monday's show. That's in the future. Now let's get this hour started with a musical about high school.

[music]

Alison Stewart: Heathers: The Musical is having a second life on the New York stage. The musical is based on the cult classic 1989 film about a popular group of students, The Heathers, who rule the school until an outsider comes to town. His name is JD, and he finds communion with a Heather adjacent girl, Veronica. Their experiment to teach the popular kids a lesson goes way out of control.

When Heathers was adapted as a musical in 2014, it ran for a short time off Broadway. Then it was recorded both officially and unofficially, and along the way, it earned a fan base. The music has now found its way back to the new world stages where it debuted 11 years ago. It was always a black comedy, but one that has a little different meaning now. It's about a bully who gets away and gets her others to do her bullying for them, like taking nerdy kids' lunch money. You know what I'm talking about? That leads the others to behave badly by burning it all down, which leads to chaos. Heathers: The Musical has the same darkness, but it's also full of bangers and features young Broadway talent.

Welcome back to the show, Casey Likes. He is starring as JD, the cool kid in town with a dark side. He was, of course, played by Christian Slater in the film. The last time that Casey was here was for Almost Famous, and he most recently wrapped up Back to the Future on Broadway. Welcome.

Casey Likes: Thank you so much for having me again. Appreciate it.

Alison Stewart: What was your first exposure to Heathers: The Musical?

Casey Likes: Probably listening to it in the car on the way to rehearsals when I was maybe like 14 years old or something like that. My other theater kid friends would play it, driving me to rehearsal. I was like, "Wow, this is a really cool show for the cool kids," I thought at the time. I was like, "Well, maybe I'm not cool enough for that, so I'll be a fan of other musicals." I lost track of it for a little bit, and now I'm a new fan.

Alison Stewart: When did you get the call to audition to come for the new version of Heathers: The Musical?

Casey Likes: I got it about three weeks before they announced me in the cast. It was kind of late into the process. There was an open call going around, but I didn't end up going in for that for whatever reason. All my friends were getting called in for it, and I was like, "Maybe I was right back when I was 14. Maybe I'm not right for this musical. Maybe I'm a whatever." They sent me the material, and it just came to me really naturally. I really am so thankful.

Alison Stewart: What did you see in the part of JD that appealed to you?

Casey Likes: I saw a lot in the part of JD. It's one of the greatest gifts of a role I have ever received in my entire-- I saved my entire career. I am 23, but I've been working since I was 3.

Alison Stewart: Yes, you have been working since you were three.

Casey Likes: Yes. Definitely, it's just such a gift for so many reasons. First of all, it's just so drastically different from everything I've done recently, which I'm very thankful for. Very different from Almost Famous. It's kind of the actually opposite in a way, but also still keeping that outsider thing, that thing where it's like, nobody gets me, and we all have a little bit of that. That resonated, of course.

Just really getting to do that transformation was the biggest exciting part about it to me. It also feels important. It's a show that feels important. It's saying a lot of things about today that I think people can learn, so that felt like another box on my list that I wanted to check off.

Alison Stewart: I think you do a really good job because I don't remember Christian Slater when I watched you.

Casey Likes: Thank you.

Alison Stewart: That you could easily do an imitation of him in a way, but you created your own JD in a very different way. Did you watch the movie Heathers?

Casey Likes: Yes. It's funny, I knew the movie Heathers more than I knew the musical, and I liked the movie a lot. I liked Christian in it a lot.

Alison Stewart: I watched it last night.

Casey Likes: I liked him. I love his performance. I've loved every original performance of the movies that I've done musicals of so much. My job has never necessarily been to impersonate anybody. There definitely were parts of Marty that I wanted to just get right originally because I knew people would look for it, like the voice or whatever, but still not an impersonation. I really just like breaking down what someone does in a performance and then going, "Okay, how can I do that? How does that work on my body and my face and my voice?"

I think, really, also, the writing for JD is just spectacular for both the movie and the musical. It was kind of hard to impersonate anything because it was just so worked out in the text.

Alison Stewart: We've talked about how time has passed since the film was released, but some things remain the same. What remains the same about Heathers and what is different?

Casey Likes: I think everything and everything.

Alison Stewart: [laughs]

Casey Likes: I think, literally, it's the same exact scenario, but a different font nowadays. We have bullies. We have girl-on-girl feuds that are never spoken about as much as the male bullies, I guess. Then, there's the male bullies that, of course, continue to terrorize the school, but also specifically women targeting them. Then we still have really crazy power hungry people like JD that sometimes take their although maybe correct moral views, except for maybe the killing part. Spoiler alert. Other than that, you know what I mean? They're all things that still exist today for sure.

Alison Stewart: My guess is Casey likes. He plays JD in Heathers: The Musical. It's off Broadway at the New World Stages. By the way, it was extended until January 2026. All right, so JD, he's charming in a certain kind of way until his dark side comes out, but we can see his appeal. When we first meet him, what's going on with him? What's going on in his life when we first meet him?

Casey Likes: We see that he is definitely just playing around. I like to consider him a big jokester. I think he's like a normal modern-day joker. Not with the face paint, not with the crazy things, but in his eyes, everything's a joke. Immediately when we meet him, we see that although he lightly alludes to maybe some past traumas, he's just floating. He's been forced to move a bunch of times because of his dad. He finds solace in 7/11, where he gets his Slurpees, and that's how he gets through the day.

Alison Stewart: I have to ask you about your hair.

Casey Likes: Ah, yes.

Alison Stewart: You have a hat on now.

Casey Likes: I do have a hat on now, but you know what's under it.

Alison Stewart: It's kind of a mullet.

Casey Likes: It's kind of a mullet. It is.

Alison Stewart: [laughs] They want to see.

Casey Likes: Here's my headphones.

Alison Stewart: Please take it off. All right.

Casey Likes: It's kind of messed up right now, but the sides are shaved a little bit. Then this big mullet long situation is happening in the back now. I did that because, first of all, I never get the chance to cut my hair. Fortunately, I've built my career the past two shows on curly hair that just looks like a mushroom. I'm thankful for that. I'm glad that they've allowed me that. For this one, I wanted to try something different with my hair. Also, I thought maybe he'd be a little militant and shave the sides of his head, but then not fully go into it and be like, "I'm going to grow out some weird crap in the back.

Alison Stewart: Are you liking it?

Casey Likes: I love it. I'm sure the Heathers fandom is very torn up about it, but I love it. I mean, whatever.

Alison Stewart: I like it too. It's interesting in the show because the first half is very fun and exuberant, and the second half, it takes a dark turn. You remember that from the movie as well, but it does take a dark turn. It talks about self-harm and potential date rape, and there's suicide involved. What did you talk to your director about that turn that the book takes?

Casey Likes: I think a lot of our conversations, specifically me and Andy Fickman, our amazing director, who, by the way, directed The Game Plan with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and She's the Man. These are both great movies. If you haven't seen them, go watch them right now. Anyways, we mainly talked about JD's place as to how he relates to Veronica and how the audience can relate to Veronica. I thought that was kind of interesting. I'm a director as well, so I thought it was very interesting to look at it from the perspective of story structure and our character's purpose, which sometimes, I guess, actors would rather focus more on. Who am I? Of course, I find that, but I find that on my own.

His conversations were, "We need to make sure the audience understands why Veronica stays." I think that was a major point for me in creating this version of JD is making sure that you know he cares about her, and he doesn't think what he's doing is really that crazy.

Alison Stewart: Let's listen to a track from Heathers: The Musical. This is Seventeen. It's a moment when Veronica and JD sort of ponder what life would be like for them if they were normal 17-year-olds, not killing people along the way. This is Heathers: The Musical.

[MUSIC - Veronica and JD: Seventeen]

People hurt us, or they vanish

And you're right, it really blows

But we let go, take a deep breath

Then go buy some summer clothes

We'll go camping, play some poker

And we'll eat some chili fries

Maybe prom night, maybe dancing

Don't stop looking in my eyes (Your eyes)

Can't we be seventeen?

Is that so hard to do?

If you could let me in

I could be good with you

Let us be seventeen

If we've still got the right

So what's it going to be?

I want to be with you

I want to be with you (Want to be with you)

Tonight

Alison Stewart: That's Lorna Courtney playing Veronica, and Casey Likes playing JD. The audience is really ready for this. They've heard that song before. They're ready for certain lines, like my teenage angst has a body count. Sometimes people are in cosplay, sometimes they're screaming. How do you tap into that as an actor, the audience being so engaged?

Casey Likes: I thought it would be more difficult than it has been. It's just such a party. Like, it's such a party atmosphere. I think it's the perfect show for the space it's in. It's a 499-seat off-Broadway house. If you didn't know, Broadway is 500 seats or above. It's pretty close to a Broadway-sized house. It's just like a small little atmosphere for a bunch of this niche audience, which even though it's huge and it's like bursting and loud, it's a niche of people who find their people there.

It's important to have a place where these people can express themselves and come and be dressed up in outfits and scream for these characters that you wouldn't imagine screaming for in a normal musical. These are complicated people, but they represent a lot of complicated people in the audience, which I think is kind of powerful. I like hearing them scream, and I like knowing that they're on with it.

Alison Stewart: It was funny. I saw it this past Saturday. "Did the cast know that the teacher who does a little bit with the audience was going to call out the Coldplay affair?"

Casey Likes: No.

Alison Stewart: [laughs] There you go.

Casey Likes: No, we didn't. No, it was one of the funniest-- Now she has officially retired the bit. It's on TikTok. She's explained it. You can go to her TikTok, @kerrybutlernyc, I think, or just @kerrybutler, something like that. Yes, she called out the big jumbotron moment. I was waiting. I was like, "I wonder when she's going to start bringing in world events to this improv." Because I did improv in Back to the Future, and we would once in a while find a way to sneak it in. First time she's called out something worldly. It lasted for about a minute of applause. It was really funny.

Alison Stewart: It was pretty funny. As you said, you were in Back to the Future and Almost Famous. You're only 23, but I'm curious what you've-- and you've been in the business for a long time, but what have you learned about performing in New York, in New York houses that you didn't know before?

Casey Likes: That you have to treat it like it's no different. I think I went out on stage for my Broadway debut. There's so many things about that experience that I keep saying I'm going to someday write a book about that nobody will read. That experience of walking out onto the Broadway stage, even though I'd been teching on that same stage for two weeks, just without an audience. Just knowing how big of a deal it was to make my Broadway debut in front of an audience was so overwhelming that it almost was debilitating for me.

Alison Stewart: Oh, interesting.

Casey Likes: You know what I mean?

Alison Stewart: Yes.

Casey Likes: Now, I've been able to learn it's just doing what you know how to do. You've spent these years to do it, treat it like it's home. I genuinely have to sometimes imagine that I'm in the theater I grew up in, either at Chandler Center for the Arts or Greasepaint Youtheatre & Scottsdale run by Maureen Dias. Yes, that's where I think of.

Alison Stewart: That's home for you? That's your theater home?

Casey Likes: Yes, both of those theaters. I did high school at Chandler High School in Arizona, and then I did theater up in Scottsdale, where they had a little bit more money to make the theater.

Alison Stewart: [laughs]

Casey Likes: Yes, that's what I kind of gaslight myself into thinking I'm at when I'm on some of these big theaters or stages.

Alison Stewart: It's interesting to think about because the Jimmy Awards were last week. They're sort of the National High School Music Awards. People whose names you know, you know you know, were Jimmy Award nominees, like Eva Noblezada, Reneé Rapp, Jasmine Amy Rogers, who just played Boop. Among the finalists were you. When you think about that experience, what was it like for you? How did it prepare you for what you're doing now?

Casey Likes: I remember thinking at the time, it was like, "This is the most busy week of my entire life. I'll never work harder." Then, boy, was I wrong. Then I just realized it was the exact same week that I would have for the next four years of my life. Not four, so six. Here I am, six years since 2019. Jesus.

Alison Stewart: [laughs] You're getting old. Jesus.

Casey Likes: I know, yes. I should really wrap it up. I'm bringing my cane around everywhere. No, no, it was so magical that week, but also so terrifying because I've always taken my work far too seriously, just because I've done this since I was three. While kids were sitting down, eating pizza, and resting, I was walking around and introducing myself to literally everyone there. Because I'm like, I wanted it so bad, not to win. I didn't care. It was just like, I know I have to be here somehow. I don't know how. I don't know if it's through mopping the stage of one of these people I meet along the way, but I got to be here.

It's a mixed experience. Every time I talk to Jimmy Awards alums, I'm like, "It's so magical, you're amazing, but also breathe. It'll work out. You don't have to win. You don't even have to final like me." Jasmine didn't final. McKenzie Kurtz went twice or three years. I can't remember. We've talked about this before. She plays Heather Chandler, and it has rave reviews as Heather Chandler in this show, but she never finaled. You know what I mean?

Alison Stewart: Yes.

Casey Likes: Some people also never go to the Jimmy Awards, you know what I mean? Just breathe. There's so many other ways to make it in-- I think it was a mix of magic and also extreme determination.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Casey Likes. He's playing JD in Heathers: The Musical. It's off Broadway at the New World Stages. As I said, the show has been extended. What does that say to you, that it's been extended?

Casey Likes: It depends on what side of my brain you're asking here. If you're asking the producer side, you're saying, "Oh my gosh, that is incredible that this fan base is this large and has literally proven to have grown since the last time it was in America." There are productions you can watch of Heathers everywhere. The rights are out. Having a professional canon version of this show is so wanted because of the work they did back in 2014 and since then. That tells me that as an actor, it means I have work, of course, which is fantastic. I literally have never had a point in my career where I've ever been able to say, "I will have a job in six months."

Now, although it looks like that, because Back to the Future went on for a year and a half. Every month is a blessing on Broadway. Off Broadway, we're pretty sure we can sell 500 seats for the rest of the time. You know what I mean? It feels great. Then also, it feels great as an artist to know that the work that Lorna Courtney, who's not here, but wanted to be here, but is stuck in a car.

Alison Stewart: Who's stuck in a Q train and a car. We couldn't have her.

Casey Likes: The work that we're doing is working for people. It's made this show work for whatever audiences have come. The work of this whole cast, it's a really great company, and I'm just glad that people are making the trek to see them.

Alison Stewart: You have a solo show coming up, though-

Casey Likes: I do, yes. Thanks for mentioning it.

Alison Stewart: -at 54 Below.

Casey Likes: Yes.

Alison Stewart: Tell us a little bit about that.

Casey Likes: Thank you. August 27th, 28th, and 29th. Wait, no. 27th, 29th, and 30th. That's what it is. That is this solo show. It's a cabaret-style solo show at 54 Below. I'll sing a whole bunch of songs that are not from my musicals. Maybe you'll get something from my musicals. It's mostly about my musical influences, starting from when I was young and to now, and how it's made me into the singer I am today.

Alison Stewart: You have been listening to Casey Likes. He plays JD in Heathers: The Musical. It's off Broadway now at the New World Stages. Thank you so much for coming in.

Casey Likes: Thank you, Alison. Thank you so much. Great questions. So great.