Carrie on the CW! Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Casey Cott on Bringing the Cult Musical to Riverdale

Riverdale High is putting on the spring musical of your nightmares: Carrie! The eagerly anticipated episode of Riverdale, the popular dark reboot of the classic Archie comic series on The CW, will follow the fictional high school’s production of the Stephen King horror novel-turned-musical on April 18. Fans might remember the cult show, which features songs by Michael Gore and Dean Pitchford and a book by Lawrence D. Cohen, closed only three days after opening on Broadway in 1988 but had more success in the 2012 off-Broadway revival, which featured then-unknowns Derek Klena and Christy Altomare. Now, Carrie returns, this time on the small screen. 

Showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa tells Broadway.com the school’s big musical almost wasn’t Carrie at all. The episode was, in fact, inspired by a real production of Sweeney Todd at a New Zealand high school, where one student accidentally sliced another students neck open with a real razor. “Luckily, the student survived,” he said, “but we thought, that’s perfect for Riverdale!” Sweeney and Little Shop of Horrors were both in the running, until the show decided that the storylines in Carrie better matched up with the characters’ current plots.

“Thematically, it fit well within the context of our show," Aguirre-Sacasa explains, with Cheryl Blossom (Madelaine Petsch) as "scary Carrie", Veronica (Camila Mendes) as Chris Hargensen, and Betty (Lili Reinhart) and Archie (KJ Apa) as couple Sue Snell and Tommy Ross. "The good girl, the boy next door, the mean girl, the misunderstood teenager and the horror elements from both the original Stephen King work and the stage adaptation played well within the world of Riverdale."

Casey Cott, who plays Riverdale High’s gay best friend and spring musical director Kevin Keller (and is the younger brother of Broadway star Corey Cott), is no stranger to the musical world. “I went to school for acting and musical theater, so [I'm a] big-time theater nerd,” the actor admits. “In this specific episode, [Kevin] has a lot of very theatrical lines and a lot of inside jokes I think the theater community will really enjoy.” But a talented singer like Cott couldn’t escape a musical episode without a few vocals. “I just sing one little line, so if you guys catch it, that'd be awesome.”

Cott says the cast had the same amount of time to rehearse and shoot as any other episode of the show—a measly week and a half. “It was utter and complete madness,” he explains. “We had dance rehearsals all day. We had recording sessions all day. And then on top of that we are shooting all day. I don't know how the Glee kids did it.”

Aguirre-Sacasa, who wrote the books for both Broadway musicals American Psycho and Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark as well as numerous off-Broadway plays, says his theater background made this episode even more special. “It was great to see one of my Broadway obsessions brought to life,” he says. Also, after co-writing the script for the panned 2013 Carrie movie reboot, Aguirre-Sacasa says that he saw this episode “as kind of a Carrie redemption for myself after the movie.”

Since the cast has shown its singing chops on past episodes with pop and Broadway numbers like “Sugar, Sugar” and “Out Tonight” from Rent, Aguirre-Sacasa didn’t think a full-on musical episode was a stretch. “If shows like The Flash and Grey’s Anatomy can pull off a musical episode,” he says “so could Riverdale.” Yet how can you talk about a musical episode without mentioning perhaps the most successful and prolific musical episode of TV? Of course, that’s “Once More With Feeling” from Season Six of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which Aguirre-Sacasa, who also wrote and produced three seasons of Glee, says inspired him most.

So, what can fans of the musical look forward to for this special TV event? In true Riverdale style, the show goes on, but not without some high-stakes drama. “Something goes insanely wrong,” Cott teases. “Something that goes so so wrong that you're not gonna believe it. The most wrong it can go happens.”

Aguirre-Sacasa says fitting a show with 20-plus songs into a 42-minute episode of TV means nine numbers got the chop. He does concede one performance that he’s sure will impress. “I don't want to give too much away, but I will say that Veronica's rendition of ‘The World According to Chris’ is iconic.”

Watch Riverdale’s special "Carrie the Musical" episode Wednesday, April 18 at 8 p.m. EST on The CW.