Chapman On Broadway (COB) is putting on their biggest show yet: “Heathers: The Musical,” premiering Feb. 28 in Memorial Hall.

Based on the 1988 dark teen comedy “Heathers,” “Heathers: The Musical” is a stage adaptation that premiered off-Broadway in 2014 starring Barrett Wilbert Weed and Ryan McCartan. “Heathers” follows high school senior Veronica Sawyer, who becomes a part of the most elite clique on campus: the Heathers (named for Heather Duke, Heather Chandler and Heather McNamara). The show quickly delves into dark comedy with the arrival of Veronica’s new boyfriend J.D. Together, they stage an accidental death as a suicide, but the consequences and body count continue to escalate.

To junior political science major Richie Amarillas — the president of COB who is producing the musical — there is a lot in the story that people can relate to. 

“There's a lot of mentions of breakups, of dating issues, of bullying, of high school drama, of the complex social dynamics of high school,” Amarillas told The Panther. “And I think there's a lot to be pulled out of ‘Heathers,’ whether it be the dark stuff or the light-hearted stuff.”

“Heathers” gained a huge cult following after its release in 1988. The film has been met with critical acclaim and has achieved an enduring legacy as a subversive teen comedy and satire of high school culture — hence its revival as a musical years later. It’s beloved, and for COB, it’s a huge step forward.

“Chapman on Broadway hadn't done a musical since before the pandemic,” said Amarillas. “And at the beginning of last year, I was like, ‘Let's do a musical.’ We ended up doing ‘Urinetown.’ It was a great time. It wasn't a crazy production, the production value wasn't really high and we did it in Irvine Lecture Hall, but it was really fun. And it was a stepping stone for what we needed, to take a step forward as an organization.”

In contrast to the relatively small production of last year’s “Urinetown,” “Heathers: The Musical” is a massive leap in scale. COB has moved from the humble stage of Irvine Lecture Hall to the grander Memorial Hall auditorium, and with that move comes a bevy of new adjustments to make. There’s more equipment, more props, more lighting, more costumes and the addition of a live pit orchestra (organized by student musical director Connor Hawthorne and assistant musical directors Sky Nudelman and Melody Hancock). All in all, it’s a lot more to manage — especially for a student-run production.

“This is a totally student-funded show, so everything has come from our own fundraising or out-of-pocket. We don't get a lot of money from the university, so that's pretty complicated,” said sophomore film and media studies major Annie Pasmann, who plays guidance counselor Ms. Fleming in the show. “And from the acting side of it, it can be pretty tiring. Mainly because we're going from hours of classes and then straight to dancing and singing — but that's what I signed up for. I do love it.”

In the months leading up to the musical’s premiere, the cast has been rehearsing for multiple hours, multiple days a week.

“We had rehearsal every day during interterm except for Fridays and Saturdays, and those were four-hour rehearsals all month,” Pasmann said. “And then during the semester it’s Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and the weekends and it's usually from about 7 or 8 p.m. to midnight. Basically, we rehearsed a lot of hours, a lot of time.”

The process of putting “Heathers” together has been a long one, with hundreds — maybe thousands — of man-hours put in since the show was announced in October. Even more work was put in before the announcement, with COB having to get the rights to production and organize the creative crews. It’s a rigorous series of processes, both logistically and creatively.

“The creative process for this has been kind of weird, because starting out I was a little bit more skeptical of ‘Heathers,’” said junior writing for film and television and philosophy double major Sarah Schmeits, the show’s director. “I hadn't really viewed it as a show that much could be done with because it was just so theatrical. It is a spectacle of a show. When I was first trying to think about it, I was thinking, ‘OK, how can we make it a little bit more realistic, a little bit more dramatic, more visceral in some ways?’ Then going forward, I just got lost in all the spectacle. So recently I've been trying to pull back and to go back into who these characters are and what they represent.”

For Schmeits, a big part of this exploring the characters and dynamics of “Heathers” came in the form of color-conscious casting a consideration of hers since auditions back in late October.

“‘Heathers’ is about the trials of being a teenager in an unempathetic world. Racial identity is an undeniable aspect of those experiences,” said Schmeits. “In the original movie and many iterations of the stage production, Veronica is a white woman. With our production, I felt we had a chance to tell a different side of the story by utilizing color-conscious casting. While Veronica's racial identity is never explicitly referred to in the text of the show, there are endless ways to read between the lines. Her transformation from nerdom to Heather status is fueled by a desire for survival and acceptance. That journey hits so much harder when told from the point of view of a woman of color.”

The color-conscious casting of Veronica — played by junior writing for film and television major Aiah Smith — is just one of the changes that COB is bringing to “Heathers.” Schmeits kept quiet about the other additions, but teased new moments sprinkled throughout the show to keep the show fresh and creatively exciting, while still staying true to the musical’s original vision. She compared her and COB’s approach to “Heathers” to popular Shakespearean adaptations which expand on the spaces between dialogue and action, and take creative liberties to reach modern audiences while sticking to the core of the texts. And as “Heathers: The Musical” embarks through  tech week before its Chapman premiere, it’s an approach that’s been working very well.

“The most rewarding part about this show is seeing where we started at the beginning of last year,” said Amarillas. “We started from the ground up. There was nothing there, there was no culture surrounding the club. There was nothing essentially. It existed and they had done musicals five or six years ago, but for all intents and purposes there was no club.” 

He continued: “And seeing where we came from when it was just six people on the board — half of whom didn't even really care to do a musical — to seeing this 80 or 90 person production in the span of a year and a half, where there is a culture and friends that that have met bonded over the show… it’s incredible. There are people who seek out our organization now. To see it go from just pretty much nothing to this in such a short amount of time is probably the most rewarding thing in my entire college experience.”

Tickets for “Heathers: The Musical” are available on Chapman’s ticketing website, with showtimes running on Feb. 28 and March 1. To follow COB and keep up with the production of the musical, check out Chapman on Broadway’s Instagram page.