This September on Roku, you can see Laurence O’Keefe’s stage rendition of the dark comedy Heathers (1989). Since its first August debut with a brief teaser clip, Roku has premiered the official full trailer for Heathers: The Musical. The teaser lets viewers inside Westerberg High, where the brightly coloured Heathers run the show. Heather: The Musical is an Off-West End stage musical based on the cult film starring Winona Ryder and Christian Slater, directed by movie and theatre director Andy Fickman (She’s the Man). Veronica goes against her better judgement when she is invited to join the Heathers, a group of the school’s most popular females who wear scrunchies.
The morally ambiguous J.D. then becomes a part of Veronica’s new life and attempts to seduce her. Veronica faces an adversary more dangerous than Heather C. as her adolescent unhappiness escalates to treachery and boredom to violence. In its first-ever broadcast, a live recording of Heather’s: The Musical will make its Roku debut on September 16. In the trailer, we encounter Veronica monologuing her new business deal with the Heathers. The Heathers do what they do best: torment the school’s primary brights, who we see set against the backdrop of their dreary high school. In a span of deep purple, the three cruel girls are introduced in a swirl of fog, awaiting their lunchroom subjects’ adulation.
We meet J.D., dance around the halls with Veronica, and be called losers by the Heathers all to the tune of the opening track “Beautiful,” and now fans can get an up-close look at the film’s deadly humour. Roku has a front-row ticket for the first time to everything from Heather C’s shocking demise to Heather D’s seamless ascension to the throne. We are warned to hold on tight in the teaser as Veronica’s redemption journey is threatened by J.D.’s infatuation and her teenage angst, complete with a corpse count. Ailsa Davidson stars as Veronica, with Simon Gordon as J.D., Maddison Firth as Heather C., Teleri Hughes, Vivian Panka, Liam Doyle, Rory Phelan, Vicki Lee Taylor, Oliver Brooks, Andy Brady, Chris Parkinson, Benjamin Karran, and Jermaine Woods also in the cast.
As Tristen Tuckfield and Jillian Apfelbaum, executive vice presidents of Village Roadshow Pictures, put it in a statement, “The narrative of ‘Heathers’ has continued to infatuate fans for decades, and we have no doubt that audiences will be totally pleased by our live rendition.” Fickman helms Heathers: The Musical, with Kevin Murphy and Laurence O’Keefe penning the scatologically scrumptious score and lyrics. Everything that was bad about the original 1980s picture has been amplified into a full-on technicolour carnage, complete with hot-girl ghosts and murderous lovers who are less cool than they are neurotic. In case you missed the complete trailer for Heathers: The Musical, you can watch it in its whole down below and then watch the live broadcast on the Roku Channel on September 16.