FIRST TAKETTHERE AREN’T MANY TOWNS THAT
can say they’re home to multiple
killers, a rocket-building cult
leader, a bear-fighting teenager,
and...whatever you’d call the Blos-
soms. And yet, Riverdale is some-
how still full of surprises. “I never
thought I’d see that many wigs in a
hallway,” Casey Cott (Kevin Keller)
says of the upcoming season 4
musical episode, in which the
teens of River dale High take on
Hedwig and the Angry Inch, the
story of an East German gender-queer punk rocker. Admittedly, it’s
a less obvious choice than the
show’s two previous musical epi-
sodes, which tackled Carrie: The
Musical and Heathers: The Musi-
cal. “We asked, ‘What cult musical
set in a high school haven’t we
done?’ ” says show runner Roberto
Aguirre-Sacasa. “Grease is a high
school musical. West Side Story is
about high school students. But
none of them felt right.” Then Ste-
phen Trask’s name popped up.
The composer —who wrote the
music for Hedwig—offered to
write music for the CW drama, but
Aguirre-Sacasa took things one
step further and decided to bring
Hedwig to the series. “When you
have a song called ‘Wicked Little
Town,’ it’s describing Riverdale,”
explains Aguirre-Sacasa.
Unlike the last two musical
specials, Hedwig isn’t a school pro-
duction. Rather, the students
perform numbers from the↑ “It’s the last
season of high
school, and we’re
finally getting
to debut the
Archies,” series
creator Roberto
Aguirre-Sacasa
says of the bandNETWORK THE CW
DAT E APRIL 8musical as part of a variety show.
Specifically, when Mr. Honey
(Kerr Smith) tells Kevin he can’t
put on Hedwig, the teen “rebels in
a very, very glittery way,” says Cott.
With Kevin in the title role (and
accompanying fishnets), his class-
mates join him—some in heels and
others in a new band. Yes, the
Archies are coming to Riverdale!
The iconic group from the comics
features Archie (KJ Apa), Betty
(Lili Reinhart), Jughead (Cole
Sprouse), and Veronica (Camila
Mendes); alongside special guest
star Kevin, they perform “Mid-
night Radio” from Hedwig.
And, indeed, that means
Jughead is singing. Sprouse’s love
for Hedwig was the final sign for
the writers. Says Aguirre-Sacasa:
“For Cole to be like, ‘I want to sing,’
it was like, ‘We have to do this.’ ” �20 APRIL 2020 EW ● COMKATIE YU/THE CWAPRIL2020.FIRSTTAKE.LO.indd 20 FINAL 3/3/20 8:38 AM