Below, senior editor P. Claire Dodson reviews a performance of Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody. Spoilers ahead.
Honestly, Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody, didn’t need to be as funny or as well-acted as it is. The Off-Broadway production, which opens officially on May 26, has already been extended to September 7, 2026 due to high demand. The source material alone would have drawn in droves of gay people and women—who have plenty of time on their hands before season 2 hits in 2027—to see the performance at The Culture Club (formerly The McKittrick Hotel, the longtime home of immersive theatre show Sleep No More) in Manhattan.
Directed and produced by Alan Kliffer, with book, music, and lyrics by Dylan MarcAurele, Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody is a delightfully unserious romp through Rachel Reid and Jacob Tierney’s Heated Rivalry universe that hits the major beats of the plot while also serving as something of a meta commentary on its fanbase and immense popularity.
The show is told through the frame of three middle-aged women named Susan (played by Ryann Redmond, Cherry Torres, and Ryan Duncan, each of whom plays multiple roles) who are obsessed with the Heated Rivalry TV series, so much so that Main Susan makes fan art that her husband openly mocks. They attempt to explain why they love it, and thus begins a sometimes silly, sometimes strangely poignant parody of the show’s first season, complete with a Kit/Scott capsule moment.
The most refreshing thing about the Heated Rivalry parody musical is that it serves as an important reminder that liking the TV show/books/characters/actors does not have to be so serious all the time. Many things about Heated Rivalry are kind of absurd—its fandom very much included—and the musical often blows these out to caricature. It does so while toeing the line of making fun of its audience and inviting them into the joke. “Some women just attract it,” Rose Landry, played by the excellent Redmond, laments to Shane about her history of dating gay men before adding to the audience. “Bet there’s several in this room.”
The songs, musical theater pop confections, are immediately catchy. I heard multiple people making their way down the stairs afterward, humming the focal point song’s chorus: “GAY. HOCKEY. PLAYERS. WITH BIG BUTTS. HAVING. SEX. IN THEIR BEDS. ON THE COUCH. IN THEIR HOMES. ALSO IN HOTELS.” I think I would sincerely listen to a cast recording.
Like its source material, the Unauthorized Musical Parody is not without its flaws—predominantly, a $17 Straw Doggin’ smoothie homage to Kit that was more like a watered-down slushie, but also a couple oddly out-of-place Epstein jokes including one that not only didn’t land during the performance I saw, but was repeated twice as part of a bit.
But like the TV show, the musical is anchored in legitimately exciting performances from its leads, Jay Armstrong Johnson as Ilya and Jimin Moon as Shane, and especially Moon, who plays Shane with an earnest sincerity that was extremely fun to watch. Redmond, Torres, and Duncan, meanwhile, ground the show’s fan perspectives; and when Duncan as Kip Grady brings an audience member up to play Scott Hunter, it’s a surreal microcosm of how viewers became part of Heated Rivalry’s impact.
The experience is a little Titanique-esque in its jokes tailored for gay people (Grindr pings, references to Drag Race contestants, musical theater in-jokes), and in the way the audience does some heavy lifting in bringing the energy of the story to life. But that’s also a large part of the fun: this living, moving dialogue that mirrors the ebbs and flows of being a Heated Rivalry fan over the past seven months. It both cements the power of the TV series and sets the stage for whatever comes next.
