Heated Rivalry parody going full steam ahead in NYC By: Jen Zoratti Posted: 4:35 PM CDT Friday, May. 8, 2026

Alan Kliffer is bringing The Cottage to off-Broadway.

The New York-based, Winnipeg-born and -raised impresario is directing and producing Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody, which opens May 12 for an eight-week run at the 6th Floor Theater.

Writer, composer and master parodist Dylan MarcAurele adapted the hotter-than-hot hit Canadian TV show, which is based on Rachel Reid’s popular Game Changers romantasy series about pro-hockey rivals-turned-lovers Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov.

“It’s a love letter,” Kliffer says of the musical over the phone from New York during his lunch break from rehearsal. “And Dylan just happens to be a genius, especially when it comes to parody.”

In March, MarcAurele and Kliffer, who had known each other for a long time and had been looking for a reason to work together, thought they would just put on a couple concert presentations of the musical (the run that starts next week is fully staged), have some fun with it, and that would be it.

Those shows sold out in 48 hours.

“And so we decided to put two more up, and those sold out in 30 minutes, and we decided to put two more up, and those sold out in 30 minutes,” Kliffer says.

Clearly the musical — which includes such numbers as Big Ass, Cold Heart and Shane Hollander Slap That Stick — has legs (and glutes).

“So then it was like, I guess we should go off-Broadway,” Kliffer says.

Like any parodist worth his salt, MarcAurele has a knack for striking precisely on a cultural moment and working extremely quickly. To wit: his musical sendup of the sci-fi/horror movie M3gan, which was released in January 2023, was up by October of that year.

“I think he wrote that in four days,” Kliffer says. “That was the first of his shows that I saw. And what he wrote in four days was, like, completely hilarious. And from then on, it was like, how do I work with this person?”

In fact, MarcAurele had already started writing the musical while new episodes of the TV show were still coming out.

“He messaged me in December, around Christmastime. It was before the sixth (and final) episode had come out, and he said, ‘I’m writing this Heated Rivalry parody, is this our time to work together?’ And I just enthusiastically hopped on board,” Kliffer says.

And the train has kept momentum.

“Usually, musicals like this take years and years of development, and what usually takes people five to even 10 years, we’ve done in two months.”

Kliffer says the musical — which stars Broadway veteran Jay Armstrong Johnson as Russian powerhouse Ilya and Jimin Moon (Sunset Boulevard) as Canadian centre Shane — is a parody with a lot of heart.

“It really takes a lot of the fandom into account. Dylan’s been very deliberate about what fans are talking about. Like, you’re gonna see sheets that are the same colour as their sheets in the TV show. That’s how granular we’ve gotten about it,” Kliffer says.

Fans can also expect to see the white outfit Hudson Williams, who plays Shane Hollander in the TV series, wore in his recent Peloton ad (if you know, you know).

The creative team is thinking about life after off-Broadway, too. Kliffer says they are in talks with a theatre in Canada and are finalizing plans on how to take the production across the pond to London, as well.

“I actually really kind of wanted to preview this in Winnipeg, but (Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre) doesn’t really have room, other places don’t have room — although I think it would be beneficial to theatres like that to program a show like this because I think it would get people to come to the theatre who wouldn’t, necessarily,” he says.

“And I think that’s something that not-for-profit theatre in Canada really, really needs, because I know there’s a big struggle happening, and so I almost think, well, shuffle your season around, make it work, because this is something that could be just extremely beneficial.”

Though he’s lived in New York for nearly a decade, Kliffer can’t help but feel some patriotic pride at being part of this particular cultural conversation.

“This is my first off-Broadway show that I’m both directing and lead producing, and I just, I feel so honoured to be doing that as a Canadian,” he says.

“I hope that I remember this process for the rest of my life, just because it’s been so magical. There have been so many happy accidents in creating this show. And who knows, maybe the Canadian gods are on my side. But I just feel, as a Canadian, very proud to have this as my first major foray, really, in New York City.”

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