At a glance, Peyton List’s new show, “Heathers: The Musical,” is not that different from the supernatural Paramount+ series she currently stars in, “School Spirits.” Both are set in a high school, and in each she plays a student straddling life and death. But the caring, inquisitive Maddie Nears, whom she plays on the TV series (Season 3 just premiered), is worlds apart from the musical’s red-blazered Heather Chandler, the acid-tongued leader of a bullying clique embroiled in a twisted relationship with the arty Veronica Sawyer.
List, 27, has also starred in the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” movie franchise, the Disney sitcoms “Jessie” and “Bunk’d,” and Netflix’s “Cobra Kai,” and those familiar with her work may be surprised by the intense stare and withering contempt she is bringing to the stage.
“She is the kindest person who just so happens to have the uncanny ability to play the unkindest Mythic Bitch,” the musical’s director, Andy Fickman, wrote in an email.
List, who lives in Los Angeles, was no stranger to the story. She saw the biting, often nihilistic original feature, about Veronica joining forces with her boyfriend to dispatch their school’s petty tyrants (including Heather Chandler), when she was growing up in New York City. “My parents were like, ‘You have to watch this movie. It’s a cool classic from the ’80s,’” she said. “I was 13, but they let us watch anything.”
Though she has an extensive acting résumé, List is making her Off Broadway debut in “Heathers.” Even more daunting: the singing. “When they said they wanted me, I was so shocked because singing is really out of my comfort zone,” said List, who recorded a few songs in the 2010s. “But I love the comedic aspects of it, and that made it more approachable to me.”
Shortly after her first performance on Monday night at New World Stages, List sat down for a chat about the experience. These are edited excerpts from the conversation and an email follow-up.
How did your first show go?
Everyone said that you don’t want anyone to see your first performance, because by month three it’s going to be amazing. People were like, “How’s your first night?” I said, “Good,” and they said, “No, it’s not. The first night is never good.” I’m just thinking, “I have to do three more months of this, holy moly!” [laughs] I’m used to filming and being like, “Well, we got the take, we’re done, I can go back to my trailer, go back home.” Now I’m like, “OK, three more months.”
You’ve got to have crazy endurance, and you’ve got to take care of yourself in a way that I’ve never done before. Before I even met Kuhoo Verma [who plays Veronica], she was messaging me, saying “Here are the tools you need. You need to take care of your voice. Here’s what you need to do when you’re going into shows every day.”
What is it like to go from playing Tory “Queen Cobra” Nichols on the “Karate Kid” reboot “Cobra Kai” to playing queen bee in “Heathers”?
Doing the stunt where I have to grab Veronica’s hair and pull her down — good thing I had that experience, because I’m learning that I don’t get a lot of time in theater, and I have to pick it up. They show it to you a few times, and there you go. But [Tory and Heather] very different — both badass women, but in different ways. That was the intention to play Chandler as genuinely evil. She’s someone with power, and that kind of power can turn into something dangerous very quickly. Heather represents what happens when power goes unchecked.
Were you aware of the show’s passionate fans, the Corn Nuts?
It’s like, “Don’t mess up, because they’ll know your line or your cue.” I started getting fan drawings and things just walking by on the street. When I was in L.A., I went to a screening for “School Spirits” and someone handed me red beads and said, “Now you’re Heather Chandler.” I put them in my dressing room.
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