Frontmezzjunkies reports: Soulpepper brings the Off-Broadway sensation Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody home to Toronto
By Ross
Some theatre announcements make me immediately reach for my calendar before I even finish reading the press release. This was one of them. Not because I need convincing that Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody is worth seeing, but because I already came painfully close to missing it once before.
Back in February, when the musical parody was first announced for New York, tickets disappeared almost as quickly as the announcement itself. I wrote then about how the production had become an event before anyone had even seen it, fueled by an audience that already understood exactly what it wanted from this gloriously affectionate send-up of one of queer television’s biggest success stories. I suspected that tiny staged reading might only be the beginning. It turns out it was.
Now, after becoming one of Off-Broadway’s most talked-about theatrical surprises, Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody is skating home. Soulpepper Theatre Company will present the musical in concert performances from July 10 through 12 before it continues on to Montreal’s Just For Laughs Festival, bringing one of this year’s most unlikely theatrical success stories back to Canadian audiences.
The timing feels especially fitting. Soulpepper will once again be overflowing with activity during the Toronto Fringe Festival, turning every corner of the Distillery District into a celebration of theatrical possibility. Amid that atmosphere arrives a musical that seems to thrive on exactly that kind of joyful unpredictability.
Written by Dylan MarcAurele (Pop Off, MichelangeloI!) and directed by Canadian producer Alan Kliffer, the musical transforms Jacob Tierney’s television adaptation of Rachel Reid’s beloved novels into an exuberant theatrical event packed with pop songs, camp humour, theatrical references, and enough hockey romance to delight audiences already devoted to Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov. The original Off-Broadway production featured Jay Armstrong Johnson as Ilya and Jimin Moon as Shane Hollander, performances that helped fuel the show’s growing reputation. Toronto casting will be announced closer to the performances and will feature a predominantly Canadian company.
What has always fascinated me about this project is that parody only works when affection comes first. When I wrote about Heated Rivalry, the Crave television series, earlier this year, I found myself drawn not simply to its romance, but to the way it placed queer intimacy inside one of professional hockey’s most tradition-bound spaces. That emotional core gave the series its heartbeat. The parody appears to understand that completely, choosing not to mock its source material as much as celebrate the passionate community that grew around it.
That same affection was what caught my attention when the musical was first announced. At the time I wrote that “the excitement surrounding this musical does not feel accidental. It feels like the natural result of a community already invested in seeing these characters live outside the screen.” Watching the production grow from an impossible ticket into an Off-Broadway phenomenon has only reinforced that feeling.
Soulpepper‘s decision to present the musical also says something encouraging about where Canadian theatre continues to expand its definition of what belongs on its stages. Alongside Shakespeare, new Canadian dramas, and civic programming, there is now room for a queer musical parody born from contemporary fandom. That feels less like novelty than recognition that audiences connect with stories in many different ways, and that theatre can embrace all of them.
Whether I actually manage to get there this time remains the question. Life has an annoying habit of placing obstacles between me and the productions I most want to see, and this one already has a history of almost slipping through my fingers. I sincerely hope this engagement works out differently.
Because beneath all the camp, the inside jokes, and the hockey sticks is something that has always made Heated Rivalry resonate. It is a story about finding space for love where no one expected it to exist, and about discovering community through shared enthusiasm. Watching that story return to Canada, welcomed by one of the country’s great theatre companies, feels like exactly the kind of homecoming worth cheering for.
