How Dylan MarcAurele and Alan Kliffer Made ‘Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody‘ Sing

Off the ice, Heated Rivalry isn’t exactly known for its snappy pace. The first season of the wildly popular story of two professional hockey players pursuing a secret romance is told over six hour-long episodes that span eight years. The unauthorized musical parody of the show, running off-Broadway at the Club on West 27th Street, tells a different story at a very different speed.

Dylan MarcAurele, who authored the music, lyrics, and book of Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody, began writing songs before the sixth episode had even aired on HBO, completing the score within three weeks. The momentum continued to build when a concert performance of the musical sold out within 14 hours, before the cast had been announced. Now, the show has been extended through Labor Day.

Adapted from Rachel Reid’s best-selling novel series, the Canadian-made television show inspired passionate fans who frequently “reheat” (their term for replaying the season). It’s those fans that the musical both skewers and honors, narrating from the perspective of super-fan Susan, played by Ryann Redmond, and her two best friends, also named Susan (Cherry Torres and Ryan Duncan). The big-haired Greek chorus of Midwestern wine moms have banded together to survive the wait for Season 2 by recounting the tale of Shane (Jimin Moon) and Ilya (Jay Armstrong Johnson) again and again.

Directed by Alan Kliffer, a longtime friend of MarcAurele’s, the parody is crafted in classic musical structure, beginning with the Susans’ anthem “What We Want”: “Gay hockey players with big butts / Having sex in their beds / On the couch, in their homes / Also in hotels / Hockey players with big butts / Sucking dick, but they’re sad.”

Cherry Torres, Ryann Redmond, and Ryan Duncan, the show’s Susans.

Poking fun at existing IP is nothing new to MarcAurele, the author of MEG4N, a parody of the Blumhouse horror franchise, The Real Housewives of NYC: The Parody Musical, Lewis Loves Clark, and Pop Off, Michaelangelo!. While he also writes original works, he says, “Parodies are the only thing that have gotten me any kind of attention or audience, and I try to hold them to as high a standard as I would any other kind of original work.”

Much of the comedy results from the hyper-sexual subject matter’s juxtaposition with a traditional musical theater framework, but Heated Rivalry is also both sharply funny and warmly affectionate, with every other lyric winking at the audience.

“Shane Hollander, Slap That Stick!” offers a lively depiction of Shane’s talent and his fandom, and “Big Ass, Cold Heart” offers insight into the stoic Ilya’s insecurities. The ballad “This Fuck Was Different Than the Last Fuck” is a Golden Age-style love song sung by a starry-eyed post-coital Shane reminiscent of “The Boy Next Door” in Meet Me in St. Louis. Even the size of Shane’s cottage is the subject of a song. (“I’ve got a cottage / It’s quite discreet / A humble cabin / Maybe 5,000 square feet.”)

The entire show features just five actors, with Redmond, Torres, and Duncan also play Shane and Ilya’s family members, teammates, and fans, executing instant quick changes, sometimes while still onstage. Moments of improv are also sprinkled throughout the show, calling upon Kliffer’s background as artistic director of The Second City and Asylum NYC.

This was deliberate—MarcAurele wanted the show to have a ragtag quality, and the audience welcomes it. “I think a lot of the show is me processing all the amazing fan reactions to the show and all the details people notice,” MarcAurele says. “I just am constantly astounded by people’s creativity and observational skills, and I try to participate and add to it, but also reflect it.”

Along with watch parties, viewers of the series were inspired to host Heated Rivalry-themed raves and trivia nights. (The fandom ascended to a new level when winners of a look-alike contest began a real-life relationship.) Audiences at the musical share the devotion, cheering at the mention, or the anticipation, of now-iconic lines like, “I’m coming to the cottage.”

“There’s a little bit of an absurdity about the idea that this show is the one that is taking off and connecting with so many people in this way,” MarcAurele says. “But it’s also not a surprise at all. It makes perfect sense. I think the butts and the sex are the draw initially, and maybe a shock value that makes headlines and stuff, but it’s the emotional resonance that has made it take off.”

“I think with the world the way that it is right now, we’re looking for those stories of hope,” Kliffer says, alluding to Shane and Ilya’s creeping journeys toward self-actualization. “Rachel Reid said she thinks that women like it so much because it’s about men treating each other well. It’s about consent. It’s all of that that really rang true for me.”

Jay Armstrong Johnson (Ilya) and Jimin Moon (Shane) in Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody.

Adapting that resonance from six hour-long episodes into a 75-minute show was ambitious, but MarcAurele’s technique was simple: make lists. He wrote down everything he knew about hockey, Canada, and Russia, as well as sexual puns and double entendres.

“I have lists of slang terms that I’ve compiled and I add to every day. I have lists of sex things, sex positions, sex everything… I literally have so many Google Docs for this exact group. I have lists of current events, things that make me laugh, tropes that move me in other TV shows or books, or anything that I can make filthy.”

MarcAurele wrote and recorded the musical’s demos within three weeks. If his speed suggests confidence, he did wonder in so doing if he would actually complete the show in time for the concerts.

“There were dark moments when I thought, Did I make a terrible mistake by booking these concert dates?” he recalls, laughing. “We’re selling well, but there’s still this plot thing I haven’t figured out… but this will all be so worth it, because there’s this amazing community of people that love this show, and I really want everybody to be able to come together.”

“This is a love letter for the fans, to the fans, to the show, to Rachel Reid, to Jacob Tierney, to everybody,” Kliffer adds. “We wanted to keep that sincerity, because without that, it wouldn’t be quite the love letter that it is.”

Similar love letters rife with queer, campy messages also exist on Broadway right now, in musicals such as Titanique, Cats: The Jellicle Ball, and even Schmigadoon!—three joyful send-ups of their source material playing to Tony-nominated fame.

“That’s what we need right now: we need joy and comedy and connection,” Kliffer says. “That’s what I feel like these musicals provide, and that’s why I feel like there’s been this renaissance of these types of musicals; the best thing that we could do is be together and laugh. I think there’s a security, too, in the romance genre of knowing that there’s going to be a happy ending.”