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Horny hockey drama ‘Heated Rivalry’ parody musical coming to NYC
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Giulia Heyward
Published Mar 9, 2026
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Sabrina Lantos/HBO Max
By
Giulia Heyward
Published Mar 9, 2026
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Update: "Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody" is now going off-Broadway, with opening night scheduled for May 26.
Forget about the cottage. “Heated Rivalry” is coming to New York City.
Sort of.
An unofficial musical parody of the wildly popular TV series is scheduled to run multiple sold-out shows on stages in Manhattan and Brooklyn this month. Around 1,200 tickets have been sold for "Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody," a production that writer Dylan MarcAurele thought he’d originally be performing in front of his friends at an open-mic night somewhere.
And it doesn’t matter how many times you’ve binged the steamy sports drama or devoured the book series that serves as its source material: MarcAurele said fans won’t be ready for what they’ll see on stage.
He said it all started when a friend told him to check out a new TV series with star-crossed lovers who were enemies in the rink and lovers in private hotel rooms. And while the show attracted audiences with its steamy scenes, fans stayed for gut-wrenching moments of anxiety, grief and the realities of remaining closeted in the world of professional sports.
It didn’t take long for MarcAurele — and the rest of the world — to become obsessed. The show was originally produced by Canadian streaming service, Crave, before HBO began distributing it in the United States to tens of millions of viewers. The network has said those numbers are continuing to grow.
The pandemonium has spilled off the screen, too. Clubs around the country are throwing "Heated Rivalry"-themed raves while StubHub reported hockey ticket sales have increased by 40% since the show’s premiere.
MarcAurele, a winner of the Jonathan Larson Grant, wrote the book, lyrics and music for the production. He said channeling his adoration for the show into his next project was a no brainer.
He’s gained a reputation for using other cultural moments as the inspiration behind other projects. Among these are "Lewis Loves Clark," a historical tragicomedy of the famous exploration after the Louisiana Purchase, and "Pop Off, Michelangelo!" — in which Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci both realize they’re gay.
“I guess I always have like a little bit of an eye open for things that might be fun to do,” he said. “Unfortunately, the theater landscape is just hard right now. And so what I've found is that it's fun to have a combination of non [intellectual property] stuff and loving parodies.”
Within weeks he had a working script. The quick-turn-around, he said, motivated him.
“For me, that is kind of the only way that I can write something like this,” MarcAurele said. “Because the second you start having too much self-awareness, you're like, 'Oh God, what am I doing with my life? Why am I writing musicals? Why am I writing musicals about gay hockey players?'"
Around the same time fans were waiting for the TV show’s final episode to air in December, MarcAurele enlisted Alan Kliffer, the former director of theater organizations Asylum NYC and The Second City, into the fold.
“Around Christmastime, [MarcAurele] texted me and said, ‘I’m writing a "Heated Rivalry" parody. Would you want to do this with me?’ and I was like, ‘Absolutely! This is the time!’” Kliffer said.
Tickets for the show’s first two dates sold out in 14 hours. Then new dates were added. Those sold out in a half-hour. Then even more dates were added. Those also sold out.
“The amount of heat it picked up, it sold out immediately without even a cast attached. And by the time that the cast was announced, basically there were no tickets left,” Kliffer said. “It's been a really fast-moving project, but it's been so exciting and kind of the most thrilling thing I've ever worked on.”
The production will be a staged reading — meaning the cast will be performing with scripts in hand — with more than a dozen songs, and a runtime of roughly an hour and a half.
Fans of the show should expect to see references to iconic moments, such as the tuna-melt scene (“I’m not going to give away the joke but it totally gets referenced,” said Kliffer) to the sexually charged sharing of a water bottle in a hotel gym. Even the sometimes-hard-to-follow time jumps will get a mention.
“Parody is really tough. It's tough to make something smart. It's tough to make something laugh out loud but also smart,” Kliffer said. “And that is what Dylan's going for. He's doing it in such an intelligent way that is also extremely hilarious.”
Jay Armstrong Johnson will play Ilya Rozanov and Zachary Noah Piser will be Shane Hollander. Three more ensemble actors — Ryann Redmond, Cherry Torres and Ryan Duncan — will step in to play several characters each. Initial readings took place on Zoom.
“ We don't have the resources to have a fully staged, choreographed, super rehearsed, production,” MarcAurele said. “But we have this amazing cast of some of the best performers in New York who all said that they were down to do this.”
"Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody" will run at the Laurie Beechman Theatre, in Hell’s Kitchen, on March 14, 16, 17 and 18 before it heads to The Bell House, in Gowanus, on March 23 and 24.
Tagged
hockey
sports
television
theater
Giulia Heyward
Giulia Heyward is a breaking news reporter on the Day-Of desk. She previously worked at NPR, as a breaking news reporter, and the New York Times, as a reporting fellow on the national desk. Her work has also appeared in CNN, The Atlantic and Politico. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or more securely on signal at 917-715-1458.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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