The passion piece that I wanted to do is the same thing I did my design a costume post. I already gave you some of the reasons why I love this musical, but Grease is my piece of passion. Grease was a musical that was originally written by Warren Casey and Jim Jacobs. The title of this piece was not named because of the massive amount of grease Elvis Presley would wear on his hair, but greaser was the name they gave youth at the time. Everything about this music happened at a factual high school called Rydell High. The written music score consist of a lot of rock and roll and doo wop influenced songs. Although Grease is based of late 1950’s, it did not make its debut until 1971. From there it went to be a successful big screen cinema smash. From there on every high school and middle school can say that they have did Grease as their musical for the year.
Things that make this show popular are the basic themes. When people go out to see movie, play, or even watching television they want to see certain themes portrayed. Here are some themes that we can look at; Love, drama/conflict, and comedy. So far in the realms of love you have all sorts of love connections. You have the obvious one with Danny and Sandy. They are two lovers that fell in love on summer break and thought they would’ve never seen each other again. Another one is between kenickie and Rizzo. These two out of the girl and guy gangs our supposedly that hard ass, tough girl characters. So they match really well. Then you have Doody and Frenchy. They are both the ditzy-air heads of the groups. They go together perfectly. Then you have Roger and Jan who are America’s favorite fat asses. They are both the jolly fat person in each of their groups, so that makes them go together. If you ask me, that is kind of funny that they do that. It does give a since of good symmetry, and I guess that is what makes everyone feel comfortable in their own skin. There is a ton of drama/ conflict in Grease. Without it you are looking at a cute and juvenile five minute slumber party story instead of two and half hour production with a fifteen minute intermission. There is conflict already when they start singing Summer Nights, because the two are sighing fully - reminiscing on the summer evenings they spent together on the beach. There is another disturbance between the couple when, Danny doesn’t want to be huggy kissy in front of his boys. From there all the lovers in paradarise (the rest of the couples in starring cast) go array. There are even more serious conflicts when Rizzo thinks she is pregnant with Kenickie’s baby. Another one where Frenchy want to permanently leave school and become a beautician. The sad thing about it is that she doesn’t do well in that either. Gang violence is a big one the beginning of act two, when the burger palace boys (or T- birds) go fight Cha Cha’s boyfriend’s gang. The only reason why her boyfriend got jealous is because that Danny took her to his school prom, only because Sandy and he were at odds. There are more drama/ conflicts that I could say, but it will take up a lot of space. The comedy aspect is always there. When it comes to the live show could be labeled as a comedy, because of the script leaves perfect spaces to be clown in. This goes for any part. The role of Teen Angel is suppose to be the most serious character on the show , mainly because he is trying to get Frenchy to do the right thing. This is where it gets personal to me. When I did that role my senior year, I took a completely different approach to it. It was based off of the Tommy Tune 1994 off Broadway version of Grease. The guy who I tried to emulate was the great Billy Porter. In my opinion if it was possible to re- do the beauty school dropout sequence in the movie, and crop Billy’s version would be a step up. He not only took a more comical/ flamboyant take on it but it was a lot more soulful. You would think he had a Gold medalist as a throat, because of all the vocal acrobatics that man did.
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