Wednesday, January 31, 2007

History of Grease the Musical:

Grease - by Jim Jacobs & Warren Casey

Based on the High school subcultures of 1950s America, it takes its name from the "tough guy" working-class greasers of the era. The musical, set in fictional Rydell High in Chicago, tackles such social issues as teenage pregnancy and gang violence; its themes include love, friendship, rebellion and sexual exploration during adolescence, and, to some degree, class consciousness/class conflict.

The show premiered as a straight play in 1971 at the Kingston Mines Theater in the Old Town section of Chicago. Producers Ken Waissman and Maxine Fox saw it and suggested to the playwrights that it might work better as a musical, and told them if they were willing to rework it and they liked the end result, they would produce it off-Broadway. The team headed to New York City to collaborate on what would become Grease, which opened at the Eden Theatre in downtown Manhattan on February 14, 1972. Excellent reviews and brisk box-office business prompted the producers to move it uptown.

The Broadway production, directed by Tom Moore and choreographed by Patricia Birch, opened on June 7, 1972 at the Broadhurst Theatre, where it ran for five months before transferring to the Royale. It remained there for more than seven years before moving to the Majestic, where it closed on April 13, 1980, having racked up a total of 3388 performances.

The original cast included Adrienne Barbeau, Barry Bostwick, Carole Demas, Timothy Meyers, and Walter Bobbie.

The show went on to become a West End hit, a hugely successful film, a popular 1994 Broadway revival, and a staple of regional theatre, summer stock, community theatre, and high school drama groups. In 2003, Grease was voted Best Musical of All Time in a BBC Channel 4 poll. A new Broadway production, directed by Kathleen Marshall, is scheduled for June 2007 and is being cast via NBC's new show "Grease: You're The One That I Want". Also, the songs from the 1978 movie that were not featured in the original musical will be featured in the 2007 revival.

Song list

Act I
* Alma Mater
* Alma Mater Parody
* Summer Nights
* Those Magic Changes
* Freddy, My Love
* Greased Lightnin'
* Mooning
* Look at Me, I'm Sandra Dee
* Since I Don't Have You
* We Go Together

Act II
* Shakin' at the High School Hop
* It's Raining on Prom Night
* Shakin' at the High School Hop (Reprise)
* Born to Hand-Jive
* Beauty School Dropout
* Alone at a Drive-In Movie
* Rock 'N' Roll Party Queen
* There Are Worse Things I Could Do
* Look at Me, I'm Sandra Dee (Reprise)
* All Choked Up
* We Go Together (Reprise)


This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License
It uses material from "Wikipedia article "Grease (Musical)"

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This helped me with my Drama class project for Park Middle School and i will soon be gitting a grade and i owe it all to this wed site.

SaviArt reviews said...

Good and simple show with oustanding dancing and singing scenes. It's very interesting because of the 70's fashion!