Heated Rivalry Musical Parody Opens Off-Broadway
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- Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody is running at Culture Club in West Chelsea, New York, through September 7, staged in a room of fewer than 200 folding chairs with a 90-minute runtime and no liquor license (one is forthcoming).
- The book and direction come from Dylan MarcAurele — previously behind Pop Off, Michelangelo! and an M3gan spoof — and Alan Kliffer, the former Second City and Asylum NYC artistic director who helped launch Titanique's off-Broadway run.
- The cast features Ryann Redmond as "Main Susan," Jimin Moon as "Shane Hollander," Jay Armstrong Johnson as "Ilya Rozanov," plus Cherry Torres and Ryan Duncan, with choreography by Brooke and Tiffany Engen and a set by Sully Ross.
- The source material is the Crave TV series adapted from Rachel Reid's gay romance novels, whose leads Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams have become, in the reviewer's words, "in easy contention for the most photographed people alive" since the show's November premiere.
- Kliffer positions the production inside what he called "a little bit of an Off-Broadway renaissance," grouping it with Cole Escola's Oh, Mary!, Titanique, and Ginger Twinsies as shorter, communal comedies drawing audiences hungry for unapologetic fun.
- The reviewer's conversion — from a skeptic who expected a "cash-grab" to a convert won over by MarcAurele's ability to mock the source material's "sillier elements," including a Liza Minnelli send-up built around "This fuck, he asked if I would stay" — anchors the piece's case for the parody's quality.
Why it matters: The production is the latest entrant in an Off-Broadway parody boom that Kliffer himself characterizes as a renaissance, joining Oh, Mary!, Titanique, and Ginger Twinsies on a wave of shorter, audience-driven comedies. Its built-in audience — fans who turned a small Canadian-streamer romance into a viral phenomenon, complete with merch like branded hockey jerseys — gives the parody a market that, per the reviewer, is already large enough to fill nightly shows before the liquor license even arrives.
