Lorna Courtney and Casey Likes to Lead Summer Return of Heathers the Musical

Tony nominee Lorna Courtney and Casey Likes will lead Heathers the Musical off-Broadway this summer. The musical will make its New York City return in a limited engagement at New World Stages from June 22 through September 28.

Courtney will play Veronica Sawyer while Likes takes on the role of Jason "J.D." Dean. Courtney earned a Tony nomination for her performance in & Juliet. She also appeared on Broadway in West Side Story and Dear Evan Hansen. Likes is best known for his lead roles in the Broadway musicals Back to the Future and Almost Famous.

“Playing Veronica is like being given the keys to a world of contradictions," said Courtney in a statement. "She's strong, vulnerable, comedic and heartbreaking all at once. It’s a character that demands you find your voice, even as the world burns around you. To play her is to find the power in being yourself, no matter how messy that is.”

“I’m really thrilled and honored to play the role of J.D.,” said Likes. “This role and story have meant a lot to people since the film came out, and ignited again since the creation of the musical, and I’m just looking forward to joining and hopefully honoring the legacy of that, while making it my own. Getting to dive into the complicated, sometimes dark, sometimes hopeful nature of J.D. is not only something I’m excited to do, alongside the amazing Lorna Courtney, but also something I hope to surprise audiences with."

The production will be directed by Andy Fickman, who staged the musical's U.K. production. Additional casting and creative team are to be announced.

Based on the 1989 cult film by Daniel Waters that starred Winona Ryder and Christian Slater, Heathers the Musical features music, lyrics and book by Laurence O'Keefe and Kevin Murphy. It originally opened in Los Angeles for a sold-out run in 2013 and transferred off-Broadway to New World Stages in 2014, starring Barrett Wilbert Weed and Ryan McCartan. The authors revised the show for the 2018 London premiere, incorporating several new songs and script changes that will be heard in New York for the first time. 

Welcome to Westerberg High, where popularity is a matter of life and death, and Veronica Sawyer is just another nobody dreaming of a better day. But when she's unexpectedly taken under the wings of The Heathers—three beautiful and impossibly cruel classmates all named Heather—her dreams of popularity finally start to come true. That is until J.D. turns up, the mysterious teen rebel who teaches her that it might kill to be a nobody, but it is murder being a somebody.