Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody

Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody is an Off-Broadway musical comedy that retells the first season of the Canadian TV series Heated Rivalry. Jacob Tierney created the series for Crave and also wrote and directed it; it debuted in November 2025. It follows two professional hockey players on rival teams whose secret romance stretches across many years, and it is based on the Game Changers novels by Rachel Reid.

The parody is billed as unofficial, which means it is not an authorized adaptation of the series. It is a commercial production funded by private investment rather than a nonprofit company season, with Klif Entertainment as lead producer. Dylan MarcAurele wrote the book, music and lyrics, and Alan Kliffer directs. This is the first fully staged version of the piece; it grew out of concerts that sold out in March 2026.

The tone is campy: double entendres and broad parody, delivered in the style of a traditional musical. The plot of season one is told from the point of view of one devoted fan, so the evening is aimed at people who know the source.

Shane Hollander is Canadian and Ilya Rozanov is Russian, and as hockey rivals their relationship turns intimate. The musical plays that premise the way an old-fashioned stage romance would, with big romantic numbers and broad comedy in between.

Three fans of the series, all named Susan, open the show and narrate it. They explain that they are retelling the story to keep fellow fans going until the series returns in 2027. The main Susan is a warm-hearted wine mom and a somewhat unreliable narrator, and the audience members are Susans too. The narrator was invented partly to speak to the series' large following among women, and partly because the four-person concert cast needed someone to carry the story.

All six episodes are squeezed into a single evening. The original jumps around in time, and the Susans keep a running count of the jumps as a joke. Familiar scenes are restaged: the first meeting, the exercise-bike scene (turned into a musical number), the water-bottle moment and a bedroom scene far less explicit than the television version. Rose Landry, the movie star Shane dates, tells him in a song that he is gay. Shane's father is left out, with a gag that he is too boring to be a character, while Ilya's Ass shows up as a cameo.

Dylan MarcAurele wrote the music and lyrics and also did the orchestrations, and Mateo Chavez Lewis is the music director. The score has 14 songs, and the original cast album collects 11 tracks.

"What We Want" opens the evening and returns later in a reprise. "Gym Song" was released as a single with a music video in August 2026, ahead of the album. Other titles on the album include "Fakeout," "I Can Host," "A Heavy Load" and "Big Ass, Cold Heart."

Five actors share the stage: one each for Shane and Ilya, and three performers who play everyone else. The three performers who play the Susans change quickly into every other character apart from Shane and Ilya, and three standbys cover the roles. As of October 2026, Jay Armstrong Johnson plays Ilya and Troy Iwata plays Shane, while Ryann Redmond is the Main Susan, Ryan Duncan plays Ilya's Dad and others, and Shelby Acosta plays Shane's Mom and others. The standbys are Sujaya Sunkara, Dean Cestari and Aaron Alcaraz. Johnson's Broadway credits include On the Town and two Tony-winning revivals, Parade and Hair. Iwata is a correspondent on The Daily Show, and his Broadway debut was Be More Chill in 2019.

The staging is simple and fast on a small stage, with movable set pieces that include a stand-up bed. The series' sex scenes are sometimes played with a life-size male doll. As reported in May 2026, a volunteer from the audience takes the part of Scott Hunter, the series' other gay hockey player, and reads it from a script.

MarcAurele began planning the parody while the series was still airing, and Kliffer says he joined before the sixth episode came out. The first idea was a one-night concert for friends, but the dates sold out before the script was finished. MarcAurele wrote the show in roughly three weeks, having watched the series only once and taking notes so that gaps in his memory would leave room for his own jokes. The cast rehearsed for just a few days.

Concert presentations at the Laurie Beechman Theatre in New York were announced on February 3, 2026. Eight performances sold out in March 2026, and two more concerts followed in Brooklyn, at The Bell House, on March 23 and 24. On March 31, 2026, a fully staged Off-Broadway run was announced. Previews began on May 12, 2026, and the show opened on May 26, 2026. Apart from the actor playing Shane, the concert cast returned for the staged run.

The run was first announced as an eight-week limited engagement and has been extended three times, most recently on September 10, 2026. The producers said that day that the show had recouped its capitalization in 13 playing weeks. Check the official website for the current end date.

Shane has had three actors so far. Jimin Moon created the role and gave his last performance on August 12, 2026, before leaving to play Rocky in the Broadway revival of The Rocky Horror Show. Aaron Alcaraz played Shane from August 13 to August 30, 2026, and as of October 2026 he is the Shane standby. Troy Iwata has played the role since August 31, 2026.

Other productions followed. A concert version played Toronto's Soulpepper Theatre for three performances in July 2026 with a mainly Canadian cast. A 70-minute version ran at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August 2026 with a separate cast, and the London premiere, again directed by Kliffer, opened on October 13, 2026 at Underbelly Boulevard Soho. The original Off-Broadway cast recording came out on Center Stage Records on September 18, 2026. Other, unrelated parodies of the series exist, among them Deep-Heat Rivalry in London, so check the title before you book.