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154-402: " Greased Lightnin' " is a song from the 1971 musical Grease which was also adapted into the 1978 film Grease . A soundtrack recording from the film version , with John Travolta on lead vocals, peaked at No. 47 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1978. Kenickie, a member of the greaser gang at the center of the musical, has purchased a used car with the savings from his summer job, giving it

308-879: A Globe de Cristal Awards in 2009 and moved to Palais des congrès in 2009 and to Le Palace in 2012, after a break in 2011. A third revival opened on September 28, 2017 at Théâtre Mogador in Paris . It is the first production completely in French, the previous ones were in French with English songs. Despite originally being billed as a limited engagement, it was extended to July 8, 2018 following its success. An Australian revival opened at Brisbane's Lyric Theatre on August 27, 2013, before heading on an Australian tour. The cast included Rob Mills as Danny, Gretel Scarlett as Sandy, Anthony Callea as Johnny Casino, Stephen Mahy as Kenickie, Lucy Maunder as Rizzo, Todd McKenney as Teen Angel, and Bert Newton as Vince Fontaine. In 2015

462-680: A 90-minute version of the show premiered on Royal Caribbeans Harmony of the Seas in May and Independence of the Seas in July. A June 2022 Australian production, directed by Drew Anthony and choreographed by Jamie and Susie Rolton, was staged at Perth's Royale Theatre, with John Berry as Danny, Elaina O'Connor as Sandy, Peter Cumins as Teen Angel, Blake Williams as Vince Fontaine and Lucy Williamson as Miss Lynch. A 2023-24 Australian tour production, directed by Luke Joslin and choreographed by Eric Giancola

616-565: A Little Christmas", "I Am What I Am", "Mame", "The Best of Times", "Before the Parade Passes By", "Put On Your Sunday Clothes", "It Only Takes a Moment", "Bosom Buddies" and "I Won't Send Roses", recorded by such artists as Louis Armstrong , Eydie Gormé , Barbra Streisand , Petula Clark and Bernadette Peters. Herman's songbook has been the subject of two popular musical revues, Jerry's Girls (Broadway, 1985) and Showtune (off-Broadway, 2003). The musical started to diverge from

770-407: A biology assignment with Eugene, comes in just as the greasers finish making fun of her. She attacks Rizzo in a fit of rage and erroneously assumes Danny is the one behind the mockery. Furious, she tells Danny that she wishes she never met him and storms out of the picnic. Danny shrugs off Sandy's negative response, and the greasers pair off for the upcoming sock hop . Danny teases Marty for not having

924-579: A book musical are its music , lyrics and book . The book or script of a musical refers to the story, character development and dramatic structure, including the spoken dialogue and stage directions, but it can also refer to the dialogue and lyrics together, which are sometimes referred to as the libretto (Italian for "small book"). The music and lyrics together form the score of a musical and include songs, incidental music and musical scenes, which are "theatrical sequence[s] set to music, often combining song with spoken dialogue." The interpretation of

1078-518: A completely new genre – the musical play as distinguished from musical comedy. Now ... everything else was subservient to that play. Now ... came complete integration of song, humor and production numbers into a single and inextricable artistic entity." As the Great Depression set in during the post-Broadway national tour of Show Boat , the public turned back to mostly light, escapist song-and-dance entertainment. Audiences on both sides of

1232-532: A date (recommending Eugene), and the greasers all laugh ("We Go Together"). For revivals that use " Hopelessly Devoted to You ", the exact placement varies. It sometimes replaces the first rendition of "We Go Together" and in other examples, such as the 2007 revival, it is placed early in Act II. The night of the sock hop arrives ("Shakin' At the High School Hop"). Sandy is at home by herself, listening to

1386-417: A few call-and-response lines. In keeping with the musical's tendency to use styles of music popular in the late 1950s, the song "Greased Lightnin ' " is in a slightly modified twelve-bar blues form, and is inspired by the 1959 single " White Lightning " by The Big Bopper . Record World said that "the beat is 50s perfect." STL Today described the song as "a number saluting a hot rod and all

1540-520: A few exceptions, compared with London runs, until the 1920s. Gilbert and Sullivan were widely pirated and also were imitated in New York by productions such as Reginald De Koven 's Robin Hood (1891) and John Philip Sousa 's El Capitan (1896). A Trip to Coontown (1898) was the first musical comedy entirely produced and performed by African Americans on Broadway (largely inspired by the routines of

1694-402: A few players . Rock musicals usually employ a small group of mostly rock instruments, and some musicals may call for only a piano or two instruments. The music in musicals uses a range of "styles and influences including operetta , classical techniques, folk music , jazz [and] local or historical styles [that] are appropriate to the setting." Musicals may begin with an overture played by

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1848-641: A five-minute song than are spoken in a five-minute block of dialogue. Therefore, there is less time to develop drama in a musical than in a straight play of equivalent length, since a musical usually devotes more time to music than to dialogue. Within the compressed nature of a musical, the writers must develop the characters and the plot. The material presented in a musical may be original, or it may be adapted from novels ( Wicked and Man of La Mancha ), plays ( Hello, Dolly! and Carousel ), classic legends ( Camelot ), historical events ( Evita and Hamilton ) or films ( The Producers and Billy Elliot ). On

2002-517: A love relationship sanctioned and restricted by Protestant ideals of marriage; that a married couple should make a moral home with children away from the city in a suburb or small town; that the woman's function was as homemaker and mother; and that Americans incorporate an independent and pioneering spirit or that their success is self-made. The 1950s were crucial to the development of the American musical. Damon Runyon 's eclectic characters were at

2156-510: A musical adaptation of Oscar Wilde 's 1895 hit The Importance of Being Earnest . West Side Story (1957) transported Romeo and Juliet to modern day New York City and converted the feuding Montague and Capulet families into opposing ethnic gangs, the Jets and the Sharks. The book was adapted by Arthur Laurents , with music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by newcomer Stephen Sondheim . It

2310-416: A musical generally became more expensive. Shuffle Along (1921), an all-African American show, was a hit on Broadway. A new generation of composers of operettas also emerged in the 1920s, such as Rudolf Friml and Sigmund Romberg , to create a series of popular Broadway hits. In London, writer-stars such as Ivor Novello and Noël Coward became popular, but the primacy of British musical theatre from

2464-497: A musical is the responsibility of its creative team, which includes a director, a musical director, usually a choreographer and sometimes an orchestrator . A musical's production is also creatively characterized by technical aspects, such as set design , costumes , stage properties (props) , lighting and sound . The creative team, designs and interpretations generally change from the original production to succeeding productions. Some production elements, however, may be retained from

2618-467: A musical style more aptly suited to twentieth-century society and its vernacular idiom. It was from America that the more direct style emerged, and in America that it was able to flourish in a developing society less hidebound by nineteenth-century tradition." In France, comédie musicale was written between in the early decades of the century for such stars as Yvonne Printemps . Progressing far beyond

2772-732: A national tour. Edurne reprised the role of Sandy, During the Madrid run, the singer Julio Iglesias Jr. guest starred as Teen Angel in some performances. In France , the first production of Grease opened in November 1999 at Palais des Sports in Paris . The production moved to the Dôme Disney Village in Chessy in 2005. The show was revived in 2008 at the Comédia in Paris with Cécilia Cara as Sandy. This new production win

2926-547: A new Broadway record. In Britain, Me and My Girl ran for 1,646 performances. Still, a few creative teams began to build on Show Boat ' s innovations. Of Thee I Sing (1931), a political satire by the Gershwins, was the first musical awarded the Pulitzer Prize . As Thousands Cheer (1933), a revue by Irving Berlin and Moss Hart in which each song or sketch was based on a newspaper headline, marked

3080-459: A new standard for star replacements, casting celebrities from different entertainment sectors for limited engagements. Some of these notable performers were Linda Blair , Debby Boone , Chubby Checker , Dominique Dawes , Micky Dolenz , Sheena Easton , Debbie Gibson , Jasmine Guy , Al Jarreau , Lucy Lawless , Darlene Love , Maureen McCormick , Joe Piscopo , Mackenzie Phillips , Jon Secada , and Brooke Shields . Shields proved so popular in

3234-464: A number of blockbusters, like Fiddler on the Roof (1964; 3,242 performances), Hello, Dolly! (1964; 2,844 performances), Funny Girl (1964; 1,348 performances) and Man of La Mancha (1965; 2,328 performances), and some more risqué pieces like Cabaret , before ending with the emergence of the rock musical . In Britain, Oliver! (1960) ran for 2,618 performances, but the long-run champion of

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3388-623: A return engagement at the Dominion Theatre from 2 June to 28 October 2023. There have been professional productions of Grease in Argentina (with Florencia Peña and Gustavo Monje ), Austria (with Pia Douwes ) and Canada (a 1998 French spoken/English sung version incorporating songs from the movie starring Marina Orsini as Rizzo and Serge Postigo as Danny). In 1984, the Mexican [then pre-teen] pop band Timbiriche starred in

3542-521: A river ... with lots of obstacles and mishaps along the way". As transportation improved, poverty in London and New York diminished, and street lighting made for safer travel at night, the number of patrons for the growing number of theatres increased enormously. Plays ran longer, leading to better profits and improved production values, and men began to bring their families to the theatre. The first musical theatre piece to exceed 500 consecutive performances

3696-538: A rousing speech, mentioning that the alumni who are missing from the reunion are surely present in spirit. The scene segues to bring in the greaser gang known as the Burger Palace Boys (known in later versions as the "T-Birds") and their auxiliary, the "Pink Ladies", as they sing a cruder version of the Rydell alma mater ("Alma Mater (Parody)"). Flashing back to the first day of high school in fall 1958,

3850-552: A run of 931 performances. Gilbert and Sullivan's influence on later musical theatre was profound, creating examples of how to "integrate" musicals so that the lyrics and dialogue advanced a coherent story. Their works were admired and copied by early authors and composers of musicals in Britain and America. A Trip to Chinatown (1891) was Broadway's long-run champion (until Irene in 1919), running for 657 performances, but New York runs continued to be relatively short, with

4004-544: A series of 2.5D musicals based on popular anime and manga comics has developed in recent decades. Shorter or simplified "junior" versions of many musicals are available for schools and youth groups, and very short works created or adapted for performance by children are sometimes called minimusicals . The antecedents of musical theatre in Europe can be traced back to the theatre of ancient Greece , where music and dance were included in stage comedies and tragedies during

4158-547: A series of successful Broadway shows, including On Your Toes (1936, with Ray Bolger , the first Broadway musical to make dramatic use of classical dance), Babes in Arms (1937) and The Boys from Syracuse (1938). Porter added Du Barry Was a Lady (1939). The longest-running piece of musical theatre of the 1930s in the US was Hellzapoppin (1938), a revue with audience participation, which played for 1,404 performances, setting

4312-789: A story-telling device in On Your Toes in 1936, which was followed by Agnes de Mille 's ballet and choreography in Oklahoma! . After Abbott collaborated with Jerome Robbins in On the Town and other shows, Robbins combined the roles of director and choreographer, emphasizing the story-telling power of dance in West Side Story , A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962) and Fiddler on

4466-451: Is frequently longer than the second. The first act generally introduces nearly all of the characters and most of the music and often ends with the introduction of a dramatic conflict or plot complication while the second act may introduce a few new songs but usually contains reprises of important musical themes and resolves the conflict or complication. A book musical is usually built around four to six main theme tunes that are reprised later in

4620-477: Is often difficult to distinguish among the various kinds of musical theatre, including "musical play", "musical comedy", "operetta" and "light opera". Like opera, the singing in musical theatre is generally accompanied by an instrumental ensemble called a pit orchestra , located in a lowered area in front of the stage. While opera typically uses a conventional symphony orchestra , musicals are generally orchestrated for ensembles ranging from 27 players down to only

4774-464: Is primarily a singer and only secondarily an actor (and rarely needs to dance), a musical theatre performer is often an actor first but must also be a singer and dancer. Someone who is equally accomplished at all three is referred to as a "triple threat". Composers of music for musicals often consider the vocal demands of roles with musical theatre performers in mind. Today, large theatres that stage musicals generally use microphones and amplification of

Greased Lightnin' (song) - Misplaced Pages Continue

4928-436: Is telling the Burger Palace Boys (Kenickie, Roger, Doody and Sonny) the story of his own summer fling (" Summer Nights "). The Pink Ladies soon after realize that Sandy's summer fling was the same Danny Zuko that attends Rydell High and arrange for the two to bump into each other at school; the resulting meeting is tense and awkward, as Danny had previously told Sandy that he attended a private academy and does not want to admit to

5082-702: Is unknown if this tour went to production or not, as it was repeatedly rescheduled from earlier 2021 dates as well as its originally scheduled tour in 2020, owing to the COVID-19 pandemic . A U.S. national tour began on December 2, 2008, in Providence, Rhode Island, and closed on May 23, 2010, at the Palace Theatre in Cleveland , Ohio. Taylor Hicks reprised his role as the Teen Angel after playing

5236-629: The Brooks Atkinson Theatre on July 24, 2007, and opened on August 19, 2007. Max Crumm and Laura Osnes were selected to portray Danny and Sandy via viewer votes cast during the run of the NBC reality series Grease: You're the One that I Want! . The original score includes four songs written for the film adaptation: "Hopelessly Devoted to You", "Sandy", "You're the One That I Want", and

5390-795: The Dominion Theatre before transferring to the Cambridge Theatre in October 1996, where it ran until September 11, 1999. Directed by David Gilmore and produced by Robert Stigwood (who had also produced the film), the opening cast included Craig McLachlan (Danny); Debbie Gibson (Sandy — Sonia , then Samantha Janus later replaced Gibson as Sandy); Mike Doyle (Vince Fontaine); Tamzin Outhwaite (Patty); Shane Ritchie (Kenickie) and Sally Ann Triplett (Rizzo). ( Variety , Review Abroad Grease, August 2–August 8, 1993) McLachlan

5544-584: The Dominion Theatre in London's West End, following a UK and Ireland tour in 2019–2021. This revival was directed by Nikolai Foster (artistic director of the Curve ) and choreographed by Arlene Phillips , with scenic and costume design by Colin Richmond, orchestrations and musical supervision by Sarah Travis, lighting by Ben Cracknell, projections Douglas O'Connell, sound design by Tom Marshall and Richard Brooker, and casting by David Grindrod. The production played

5698-661: The New London Theatre on June 26, 1973, with a cast that included Richard Gere as Danny, Stacey Gregg as Sandy, and Jacquie-Ann Carr as Rizzo. Later Paul Nicholas and Elaine Paige took over the leads. The production closed on February 14, 1974. The show was revived at the Astoria Theatre from June 7 to September 22, 1979, with Michael Howe as Danny, Jacqueline Reddin as Sandy, and Hilary Labow as Rizzo. The company also included Tracey Ullman as Frenchy and Su Pollard as Cha-Cha. The revival opened at

5852-916: The Piccadilly Theatre 's history). The leads were similarly cast via ITV 's Grease Is the Word , with Danny Bayne and Susan McFadden playing Danny and Sandy. The production closed on April 30, 2011, after over 1,300 performances with a U.K. tour to begin on May 6, 2011, in Edinburgh . The UK tour features Danny Bayne as Danny, Carina Gillespie as Sandy, Ricky Rojas as Kenickie, Kate Somerset How as Rizzo, Derek Andrews as Roger, Laura Wilson as Jan, Richard Vincent as Doody, Lauren Stroud as Frenchy, Josh Dever as Sonny, Lois Urwin as Marty, Darren John as Eugene, Sammy Kelly as Patty, Jason Capewell as Teen Angel/Vince Fontaine, Nancy Hill as Miss Lynch, and Sophie Zucchini as Cha Cha. In 2017, Grease started touring

6006-640: The Roaring Twenties , borrowing from vaudeville, music hall and other light entertainments, tended to emphasize big dance routines and popular songs at the expense of plot. Typical of the decade were lighthearted productions like Sally ; Lady, Be Good ; No, No, Nanette ; Oh, Kay! ; and Funny Face . Despite forgettable stories, these musicals featured stars such as Marilyn Miller and Fred Astaire and produced dozens of enduring popular songs by Kern, George and Ira Gershwin , Irving Berlin , Cole Porter and Rodgers and Hart . Popular music

6160-491: The Tudor period that involved music, dancing, singing and acting, often with expensive costumes and a complex stage design . These developed into sung plays that are recognizable as English operas, the first usually being thought of as The Siege of Rhodes (1656). In France, meanwhile, Molière turned several of his farcical comedies into musical entertainments with songs (music provided by Jean-Baptiste Lully ) and dance in

6314-557: The minstrel shows ), followed by ragtime -tinged shows. Hundreds of musical comedies were staged on Broadway in the 1890s and early 20th century, composed of songs written in New York's Tin Pan Alley , including those by George M. Cohan , who worked to create an American style distinct from the Gilbert and Sullivan works. The most successful New York shows were often followed by extensive national tours. Meanwhile, musicals took over

Greased Lightnin' (song) - Misplaced Pages Continue

6468-543: The "Golden Age" of American musical theatre. Americana was displayed on Broadway during the "Golden Age", as the wartime cycle of shows began to arrive. An example of this is On the Town (1944), written by Betty Comden and Adolph Green , composed by Leonard Bernstein and choreographed by Jerome Robbins . The story is set during wartime and concerns three sailors who are on a 24-hour shore leave in New York City, during which each falls in love. The show also gives

6622-463: The "R-rated" profanity and deliberate use of shock value , the Chicago version of Grease included a substantially different songbook, which was shorter and included multiple references to real Chicago landmarks. Producers Ken Waissman and Maxine Fox saw the show and made a deal to produce it Off-Broadway . The team headed to New York City to collaborate on the New York production of Grease . It

6776-569: The 1850s to the 1870s and Johann Strauss II in the 1870s and 1880s. Offenbach's fertile melodies, combined with his librettists' witty satire, formed a model for the musical theatre that followed. Adaptations of the French operettas (played in mostly bad, risqué translations), musical burlesques , music hall, pantomime and burletta dominated the London musical stage into the 1870s. In America, mid-19th century musical theatre entertainments included crude variety revue , which eventually developed into vaudeville , minstrel shows , which soon crossed

6930-504: The 1910s, the team of P. G. Wodehouse , Guy Bolton and Jerome Kern , following in the footsteps of Gilbert and Sullivan , created the " Princess Theatre shows" and paved the way for Kern's later work by showing that a musical could combine light, popular entertainment with continuity between its story and songs. Historian Gerald Bordman wrote: These shows built and polished the mold from which almost all later major musical comedies evolved. ... The characters and situations were, within

7084-555: The 19th century through 1920 was gradually replaced by American innovation, especially after World War I, as Kern and other Tin Pan Alley composers began to bring new musical styles such as ragtime and jazz to the theatres, and the Shubert Brothers took control of the Broadway theatres. Musical theatre writer Andrew Lamb notes, "The operatic and theatrical styles of nineteenth-century social structures were replaced by

7238-412: The 19th century, such as music hall , melodrama and burletta , which were popularized partly because most London theatres were licensed only as music halls and not allowed to present plays without music. Colonial America did not have a significant theatre presence until 1752, when London entrepreneur William Hallam sent a company of actors to the colonies managed by his brother Lewis . In New York in

7392-810: The 5th century BCE. The music from the ancient forms is lost, however, and they had little influence on later development of musical theatre. In the 12th and 13th centuries, religious dramas taught the liturgy . Groups of actors would use outdoor Pageant wagons (stages on wheels) to tell each part of the story. Poetic forms sometimes alternated with the prose dialogues, and liturgical chants gave way to new melodies. The European Renaissance saw older forms evolve into two antecedents of musical theatre: commedia dell'arte , where raucous clowns improvised familiar stories, and later, opera buffa . In England, Elizabethan and Jacobean plays frequently included music, and short musical plays began to be included in an evenings' dramatic entertainments. Court masques developed during

7546-551: The Angry Inch and other shows in recent decades. Parade is a sensitive exploration of both anti-Semitism and historical American racism, and Ragtime similarly explores the experience of immigrants and minorities in America. After the success of Hair , rock musicals flourished in the 1970s, with Jesus Christ Superstar , Godspell , The Rocky Horror Show , Evita and Two Gentlemen of Verona . Some of those began as " concept albums " which were then adapted to

7700-677: The Atlantic had little money to spend on entertainment, and only a few stage shows anywhere exceeded a run of 500 performances during the decade. The revue The Band Wagon (1931) starred dancing partners Fred Astaire and his sister Adele , while Porter's Anything Goes (1934) confirmed Ethel Merman 's position as the First Lady of musical theatre, a title she maintained for many years. Coward and Novello continued to deliver old fashioned, sentimental musicals, such as The Dancing Years , while Rodgers and Hart returned from Hollywood to create

7854-425: The Atlantic to Britain, and Victorian burlesque, first popularized in the US by British troupes. A hugely successful musical entertainment that premiered in New York in 1866, The Black Crook , combined dance and some original music that helped to tell the story. The spectacular production, famous for its skimpy costumes, ran for a record-breaking 474 performances. The same year, The Black Domino/Between You, Me and

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8008-582: The Burger Palace Boys that she was the woman he was talking about. As the Burger Palace Boys leave, Sandy is hurt and angry, but the Pink Ladies cheer her up, by inviting her over to Marty's pajama party. Shortly afterwards, the teenagers gather in the hall as Doody shows off his new guitar and performs a song ("Those Magic Changes"). At Marty's pajama party, the girls experiment with wine, cigarettes, pierce their ears and talk about boys. The sheltered Sandy goes into shock and falls ill from seeing blood when

8162-626: The Civic Theatre in Auckland during August 2010. The production featured the South African cast, with Jonathan Roxmouth as Danny, Bethany Dickson as Sandy and Genna Galloway as Rizzo. A second Spanish revival directed and choreographed by Coco Comín ran at Cúpula Las Arenas, Barcelona from November 15, 2011, to January 22, 2012, and then was transferred to Teatro Coliseum, Madrid from March 6, 2012, to May 6, 2012, before starting

8316-756: The English-speaking stage by competition from the ubiquitous Edwardian musical comedies, operettas returned to London and Broadway in 1907 with The Merry Widow , and adaptations of continental operettas became direct competitors with musicals. Franz Lehár and Oscar Straus composed new operettas that were popular in English until World War I. In America, Victor Herbert produced a string of enduring operettas including The Fortune Teller (1898), Babes in Toyland (1903), Mlle. Modiste (1905), The Red Mill (1906) and Naughty Marietta (1910). In

8470-586: The Golden Age, automotive companies and other large corporations began to hire Broadway talent to write corporate musicals , private shows only seen by their employees or customers. The 1950s ended with Rodgers and Hammerstein 's last hit, The Sound of Music , which also became another hit for Mary Martin. It ran for 1,443 performances and shared the Tony Award for Best Musical. Together with its extremely successful 1965 film version , it has become one of

8624-826: The Kingston Mines Theatre Company founded by June Pyskacek on Chicago's Lincoln Avenue. The script was based on Jim Jacobs ' experience at William Taft High School, Chicago. Warren Casey collaborated with Jim and together they wrote the music and lyrics. It ran for eight months. The cast: Doug Stevenson (Danny), Leslie Goto (Sandy), Sue Williams (Rizzo), Polly Pen (Patty), Gary Houston (Roger), Marilu Henner (Marty), James Canning (Doody), Hedda Lubin (Frenchy), Bruce Hickey (Kenickie), Sheila Ray Ceaser (Jan), Bill Cervetti (Miller), Jerry Bolnick (Sonny), Judy Brubaker (Miss Lynch), Mike O'Connor (Vince Fontaine), Steve Munro (Eugene), Barbara Munro (Cha Cha), Mac Hamilton (Teen Angel) and George Lopez (Bum). In addition to

8778-583: The London stage in the Gay Nineties , led by producer George Edwardes , who perceived that audiences wanted a new alternative to the Savoy -style comic operas and their intellectual, political, absurdist satire. He experimented with a modern-dress, family-friendly musical theatre style, with breezy, popular songs, snappy, romantic banter, and stylish spectacle at the Gaiety and his other theatres. These drew on

8932-472: The Mooners", he has a hobby of baring his backside to unsuspecting victims, and in the process, both reveal their affections for each other ("Mooning"). Rizzo teases Danny for falling for a girl who resembles the excessively proper teenage ingénue , Sandra Dee , and the other greasers join in as she makes fun of Sandy, who has not arrived at the picnic yet ("Look at Me, I'm Sandra Dee"). Sandy, working on

9086-560: The Mountains (1,352 performances) and especially Chu Chin Chow . Its run of 2,238 performances was more than twice as long as any previous musical, setting a record that stood for nearly forty years. Even a revival of The Beggar's Opera held the stage for 1,463 performances. Revues like The Bing Boys Are Here in Britain, and those of Florenz Ziegfeld and his imitators in America, were also extraordinarily popular. The musicals of

9240-643: The One That I Want", and the title number. As in the film, the Burger Palace Boys' were renamed the T-Birds for this revival. After 20 previews, a Broadway revival directed and choreographed by Jeff Calhoun premiered on May 11, 1994, at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre , where it ran for 1,505 performances. The opening cast included Ricky Paull Goldin (Danny), Susan Wood (Sandy), Rosie O'Donnell (Rizzo), Sam Harris (Doody), Hunter Foster (Roger), Megan Mullally (Marty), and Billy Porter (Teen Angel). The production set

9394-432: The Pink Ladies sit in the lunchroom, and the Burger Palace Boys sit at the entrance to the school. One of the Pink Ladies, Frenchy, introduces her new neighbor Sandy Dumbrowski, who had been unjustly rejected from a Catholic school , to the others (Marty, Jan and Rizzo), as well as Patty. Sandy tells of how she had a brief love affair the summer before, which ended with unresolved love. Meanwhile, womanizing greaser Danny Zuko

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9548-460: The Pink Ladies try to pierce her ears, leading them to mock her when she's not in the room (in some revivals, the song "Look at Me, I'm Sandra Dee" is placed here, mirroring the film). Marty tells about her long-distance courtship with a Marine named Freddy and it is implied that she maintains it only because of the lavish gifts he sends her from Japan ("Freddy, My Love"). That same night, the Burger Palace Boys are busy stealing hubcaps, unaware that

9702-655: The Post was the first show to call itself a "musical comedy." In 1874, Evangeline or The Belle of Arcadia , by Edward E. Rice and J. Cheever Goodwin , based loosely on Longfellow’s Evangeline , with an original American story and music, opened successfully in New York and was revived in Boston, New York, and in repeated tours. Comedians Edward Harrigan and Tony Hart produced and starred in musicals on Broadway between 1878 ( The Mulligan Guard Picnic ) and 1885. These musical comedies featured characters and situations taken from

9856-582: The Roof (1964). Bob Fosse choreographed for Abbott in The Pajama Game (1956) and Damn Yankees (1957), injecting playful sexuality into those hits. He was later the director-choreographer for Sweet Charity (1968), Pippin (1972) and Chicago (1975). Other notable director-choreographers have included Gower Champion , Tommy Tune , Michael Bennett , Gillian Lynne and Susan Stroman . Prominent directors have included Hal Prince , who also got his start with Abbott, and Trevor Nunn . During

10010-502: The Scorpions in the film, had challenged them to a quarter-mile drag race , requiring them to have a competitive car for the duel. With Danny at the helm (and a reprise of "Greased Lightnin ' " playing in the background), Greased Lightnin' wins the race. The film is also notable for having Danny (played by John Travolta, who had already had top-40 hits before Grease ) sing lead on the song, while Kenickie ( Jeff Conaway ) contributed with

10164-463: The Shrew for Kiss Me, Kate (1948, 1,077 performances). The American musicals overwhelmed the old-fashioned British Coward/Novello-style shows, one of the last big successes of which was Novello's Perchance to Dream (1945, 1,021 performances). The formula for the Golden Age musicals reflected one or more of four widely held perceptions of the "American dream": That stability and worth derives from

10318-862: The Teen Angel for a one-week engagement at the Jackie Gleason Theater in Miami Beach (December 10–15, 1996). This tour was directed by Ray DeMattis and featured choreography by Christopher Gattelli . The cast starred Frankie Avalon as the Angel, with Jamey Isenor (Danny Zuko) and Hanna-Liina Võsa (Sandy Dumbrowski), Jason Harper (Roger), Danny Smith (Sonny LaTierri), John Ashley (Kenickie), Sarah Hubbard (Frenchy), Craig McEldowney (Doody), Kirsten Allyn Michaels (Marty), Jaqueline Colmer (Betty Rizzo), Cortney Harper (Jan) and Arthur J. Callahan (Vince Fontaine). A second Broadway revival, directed and choreographed by Kathleen Marshall , began previews at

10472-497: The Times Square area until the 1920s and 1930s. New York runs lagged far behind those in London, but Laura Keene 's "musical burletta" Seven Sisters (1860) shattered previous New York musical theatre record, with a run of 253 performances. Around 1850, the French composer Hervé was experimenting with a form of comic musical theatre he called opérette . The best known composers of operetta were Jacques Offenbach from

10626-615: The UK again, this time starring the Wanted's Tom Parker as Danny Zuko, BBC Over the Rainbow winner Danielle Hope as Sandy and Strictly Come Dancing 's Louisa Lytton . A further UK and Ireland tour of Grease was scheduled to commence from Curve, Leicester , on 30 July 2021. This production will star Peter Andre as Teen Angel and Vince Fontaine. The production will be directed by Nikolai Foster and choreographed by Arlene Phillips . It

10780-414: The United States and Britain, there are vibrant musical theatre scenes in continental Europe, Asia, Australasia, Canada and Latin America. Since the 20th century, the "book musical" has been defined as a musical play where songs and dances are fully integrated into a well-made story with serious dramatic goals and which is able to evoke genuine emotions other than laughter. The three main components of

10934-430: The West End in the 21st century have been presented in one act. Moments of greatest dramatic intensity in a book musical are often performed in song. Proverbially, "when the emotion becomes too strong for speech, you sing; when it becomes too strong for song, you dance." In a book musical, a song is ideally crafted to suit the character (or characters) and their situation within the story; although there have been times in

11088-507: The actors' singing voices in a way that would generally be disapproved of in an operatic context. Some works, including those by George Gershwin , Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim , have been made into both musical theatre and operatic productions. Similarly, some older operettas or light operas (such as The Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert and Sullivan ) have been produced in modern adaptations that treat them as musicals. For some works, production styles are almost as important as

11242-437: The ascent of the Pink Ladies clique). On January 31, 2016, in the wake of similar productions that NBC had performed for other musicals, Fox broadcast a live production of Grease , known as Grease: Live , as a television special starring Julianne Hough , Aaron Tveit , Vanessa Hudgens and Jordan Fisher . Because of changes to the musical that have been made since the 1978 film adaptation, several variants exist. In

11396-404: The car into racing condition.) Both the musical and the film imply that at least some of the parts Kenickie uses are stolen. In the original recording, as was in the case with the stage musical on which it was based, several unairable profanities of a sexual nature are peppered throughout the lyrics, which deterred a number of stations from playing the song and possibly prevented it from reaching

11550-474: The characters express their ideas. It defied musical conventions by raising its first act curtain not on a bevy of chorus girls, but rather on a woman churning butter, with an off-stage voice singing the opening lines of Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin' unaccompanied. It drew rave reviews, set off a box-office frenzy and received a Pulitzer Prize . Brooks Atkinson wrote in The New York Times that

11704-557: The comparatively frivolous musicals and sentimental operettas of the decade, Broadway's Show Boat (1927) represented an even more complete integration of book and score than the Princess Theatre musicals, with dramatic themes told through the music, dialogue, setting and movement. This was accomplished by combining the lyricism of Kern's music with the skillful libretto of Oscar Hammerstein II . One historian wrote, "Here we come to

11858-399: The content has been diluted and its teenage characters have become less Chicago habitués (the characters' Polish-American backgrounds in particular are ignored with last names often changed, although two Italian-American characters are left identifiably ethnic) and more generic. The first Broadway production opened on June 7, 1972; when it closed in 1980, Grease ' s 3,388-performance run

12012-508: The continent, singspiel , comédie en vaudeville , opéra comique , zarzuela and other forms of light musical entertainment were emerging. The Beggar's Opera was the first recorded long-running play of any kind, running for 62 successive performances in 1728. It would take almost a century afterwards before any play broke 100 performances, but the record soon reached 150 in the late 1820s. Other musical theatre forms developed in England by

12166-452: The controversy surrounding it, ran for 108 performances. Rodgers and Hart's I'd Rather Be Right (1937) was a political satire with George M. Cohan as President Franklin D. Roosevelt , and Kurt Weill 's Knickerbocker Holiday depicted New York City's early history while good-naturedly satirizing Roosevelt's good intentions. The motion picture mounted a challenge to the stage. Silent films had presented only limited competition, but by

12320-548: The core of Frank Loesser 's and Abe Burrows ' Guys and Dolls , (1950, 1,200 performances); and the Gold Rush was the setting for Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe 's Paint Your Wagon (1951). The relatively brief seven-month run of that show did not discourage Lerner and Loewe from collaborating again, this time on My Fair Lady (1956), an adaptation of George Bernard Shaw 's Pygmalion starring Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews , which at 2,717 performances held

12474-494: The decade was The Black and White Minstrel Show (1962), which played for 4,344 performances. Two men had considerable impact on musical theatre history beginning in this decade: Stephen Sondheim and Jerry Herman . The first project for which Sondheim wrote both music and lyrics was A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962, 964 performances), with a book based on the works of Plautus by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart , starring Zero Mostel . Sondheim moved

12628-786: The decades that followed include My Fair Lady (1956), The Fantasticks (1960), Hair (1967), A Chorus Line (1975), Les Misérables (1985), The Phantom of the Opera (1986), Rent (1996), Wicked (2003) and Hamilton (2015). Musicals are performed around the world. They may be presented in large venues, such as big-budget Broadway or West End productions in New York City or London. Alternatively, musicals may be staged in smaller venues, such as off-Broadway , off-off-Broadway , regional theatre , fringe theatre , or community theatre productions, or on tour . Musicals are often presented by amateur and school groups in churches, schools and other performance spaces. In addition to

12782-403: The earlier musical forms of comic opera and operetta. The Geisha (1896) was one of the most successful in the 1890s, running for more than two years and achieving great international success. The Belle of New York (1898) became the first American musical to run for over a year in London. The British musical comedy Florodora (1899) was a popular success on both sides of the Atlantic, as

12936-409: The end of the 1920s, films like The Jazz Singer could be presented with synchronized sound. "Talkie" films at low prices effectively killed off vaudeville by the early 1930s. Despite the economic woes of the 1930s and the competition from film, the musical survived. In fact, it continued to evolve thematically beyond the gags and showgirls musicals of the Gay Nineties and Roaring Twenties and

13090-544: The end of the Golden Age, several shows tackled Jewish subjects and issues, such as Fiddler on the Roof , Milk and Honey , Blitz! and later Rags . The original concept that became West Side Story was set in the Lower East Side during Easter-Passover celebrations; the rival gangs were to be Jewish and Italian Catholic . The creative team later decided that the Polish (white) vs. Puerto Rican conflict

13244-585: The event two songs are listed at any given point, the first is from the 1972 Off-Broadway version, and the second is from revivals that use the film music, such as the 2007 version. At revivals that use the 1978 song " Grease ", it is typically inserted at or near the beginning of the show. At the Rydell High Class of 1959 reunion ("Alma Mater"), old maid English teacher Miss Lynch introduces former cheerleader/yearbook-editor Patty Simcox Honeywell and class valedictorian Eugene Florczyk. Eugene gives

13398-409: The everyday life of New York's lower classes. They starred high quality singers ( Lillian Russell , Vivienne Segal and Fay Templeton ) instead of the ladies of questionable repute who had starred in earlier musical forms. In 1879, The Brook by Nate Salsbury was another national success with contemporary American dance styles and an American story about "members of an acting company taking a trip down

13552-410: The features he describes are mutually exclusive with others: a car with an " automatic ... Hydramatic " transmission therefore could not have "a four speed on the floor" i.e. manual transmission , and "four-barrel quads" are carburetors inconsistent with true " Fuel injection cut off". (In the film, despite the contradictions in the lyrics, the greasers along with a shop teacher succeed in rebuilding

13706-408: The film cut the offending lyrics. In the original musical, the song is Kenickie's featured number, with the other greasers serving as his backup singers. The film expands upon the car's purpose. Whereas the stage musical gives no particular reason for Kenickie's desire to build the car (which does not play a major factor in the play beyond that point), the film explains that the greasers' rivals, named

13860-438: The first Broadway show in which an African-American, Ethel Waters , starred alongside white actors. Waters' numbers included " Supper Time ", a woman's lament for her husband who has been lynched. The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess (1935) featured an all African-American cast and blended operatic, folk and jazz idioms. The Cradle Will Rock (1937), directed by Orson Welles , was a highly political pro- union piece that, despite

14014-515: The founding of the state of Israel, and continuing with the blockbuster hits Hello, Dolly! (1964, 2,844 performances), Mame (1966, 1,508 performances), and La Cage aux Folles (1983, 1,761 performances). Even his less successful shows like Dear World (1969) and Mack and Mabel (1974) have had memorable scores ( Mack and Mabel was later reworked into a London hit). Writing both words and music, many of Herman's show tunes have become popular standards, including " Hello, Dolly! ", "We Need

14168-472: The history of the musical (e.g. from the 1890s to the 1920s) when this integration between music and story has been tenuous. As The New York Times critic Ben Brantley described the ideal of song in theatre when reviewing the 2008 revival of Gypsy : "There is no separation at all between song and character, which is what happens in those uncommon moments when musicals reach upward to achieve their ideal reasons to be." Typically, many fewer words are sung in

14322-426: The hubcaps are on Kenickie's car, Greased Lightnin'. Unfazed by the others' skepticism, Kenickie sings of the upgrades needed to make the car a racing-worthy chick magnet (" Greased Lightnin' "). Danny sees Sandy again at her cheerleader practice, and tries to apologize for his behavior. Patty interrupts and flirts with Danny. Patty informs Danny that track try-outs are nearing, and Danny tells Sandy that he will join

14476-527: The impression of a country with an uncertain future, as the sailors and their women also have. Irving Berlin used sharpshooter Annie Oakley 's career as a basis for his Annie Get Your Gun (1946, 1,147 performances); Burton Lane , E. Y. Harburg and Fred Saidy combined political satire with Irish whimsy for their fantasy Finian's Rainbow (1947, 725 performances); and Cole Porter found inspiration in William Shakespeare 's The Taming of

14630-447: The interplay of lyrics and music in his shows. Some of Sondheim's notable innovations include a show presented in reverse ( Merrily We Roll Along ) and the above-mentioned Anyone Can Whistle , in which the first act ends with the cast informing the audience that they are mad. Jerry Herman played a significant role in American musical theatre, beginning with his first Broadway production, Milk and Honey (1961, 563 performances), about

14784-522: The joy it promises". In the film version of Grease , the song was recorded by John Travolta . An earlier version was recorded in 1972 by The Wild Angels . The song was covered by Lance Ellington in the animated film Planet 51 . Irish pop band Westlife had a recorded cover of the song in 2003. The song was parodied by David Flora and Dave Stecco of the Blurry Photos podcast as the opening of their Thunderbirds episode, which they admitted

14938-548: The late 17th century. These influenced a brief period of English opera by composers such as John Blow and Henry Purcell . From the 18th century, the most popular forms of musical theatre in Britain were ballad operas , like John Gay 's The Beggar's Opera , that included lyrics written to the tunes of popular songs of the day (often spoofing opera), and later pantomime , which developed from commedia dell'arte, and comic opera with mostly romantic plot lines, like Michael Balfe 's The Bohemian Girl (1845). Meanwhile, on

15092-402: The limitations of musical comedy license, believable and the humor came from the situations or the nature of the characters. Kern's exquisitely flowing melodies were employed to further the action or develop characterization. ... [Edwardian] musical comedy was often guilty of inserting songs in a hit-or-miss fashion. The Princess Theatre musicals brought about a change in approach. P. G. Wodehouse,

15246-505: The long-run record for many years. Popular Hollywood films were made of all of these musicals. Two hits by British creators in this decade were The Boy Friend (1954), which ran for 2,078 performances in London and marked Andrews' American debut, and Salad Days (1954), which broke the British long-run record with a run of 2,283 performances. Another record was set by The Threepenny Opera , which ran for 2,707 performances, becoming

15400-535: The longest-running off-Broadway musical until The Fantasticks . The production also broke ground by showing that musicals could be profitable off-Broadway in a small-scale, small orchestra format. This was confirmed in 1959 when a revival of Jerome Kern and P. G. Wodehouse 's Leave It to Jane ran for more than two years. The 1959–1960 off-Broadway season included a dozen musicals and revues including Little Mary Sunshine , The Fantasticks and Ernest in Love ,

15554-445: The most observant, literate and witty lyricist of his day, and the team of Bolton, Wodehouse and Kern had an influence felt to this day. The theatre-going public needed escapist entertainment during the dark times of World War I , and they flocked to the theatre. The 1919 hit musical Irene ran for 670 performances, a Broadway record that held until 1938. The British theatre public supported far longer runs like that of The Maid of

15708-585: The most popular musicals in history. In 1960, The Fantasticks was first produced off-Broadway. This intimate allegorical show would quietly run for over 40 years at the Sullivan Street Theatre in Greenwich Village , becoming by far the longest-running musical in history. Its authors produced other innovative works in the 1960s, such as Celebration and I Do! I Do! , the first two-character Broadway musical. The 1960s would see

15862-423: The music for a story about Rose Thompson Hovick , the mother of the titular stripper Gypsy Rose Lee . Although directors and choreographers have had a major influence on musical theatre style since at least the 19th century, George Abbott and his collaborators and successors took a central role in integrating movement and dance fully into musical theatre productions in the Golden Age. Abbott introduced ballet as

16016-480: The musical beyond its concentration on the romantic plots typical of earlier eras; his work tended to be darker, exploring the grittier sides of life both present and past. Other early Sondheim works include Anyone Can Whistle (1964, which ran only nine performances, despite having stars Lee Remick and Angela Lansbury ), and the successful Company (1970), Follies (1971) and A Little Night Music (1973). Later, Sondheim found inspiration in unlikely sources:

16170-580: The musical follows ten working-class teenagers as they navigate the complexities of peer pressure, politics, personal core values, and love. The score borrows heavily from the sounds of early rock and roll . In its original production in Chicago, Grease was a raunchy, raw, aggressive, vulgar show. Subsequent productions toned down the more risqué content. The show mentions social issues such as teenage pregnancy , peer pressure , and gang violence ; its themes include love, friendship, teenage rebellion , sexual exploration during adolescence. Jacobs described

16324-407: The musical theatre works of American creators like George M. Cohan at the turn of the 20th century. The Princess Theatre musicals (1915–1918) were artistic steps forward beyond the revues and other frothy entertainments of the early 20th century and led to such groundbreaking works as Show Boat (1927), Of Thee I Sing (1931) and Oklahoma! (1943). Some of the most famous musicals through

16478-522: The musical, with Sasha Sokol and Benny Ibarra in the leading roles, which was an overwhelming success. The band also released an album ( Vaselina ) featuring themes from the musical. The cast included other members of Timbiriche ( Diego Schoening , Mariana Garza , Alix Bauer , Paulina Rubio and Erik Rubin ), along with other child singers and actors such as Eduardo Capetillo , Stephanie Salas , Thalía , Edith Márquez , Lolita Cortés, Hector Suarez Gomis , Usi Velasco and Angélica Ruvalcaba. The musical

16632-421: The musical. A 2016 live TV musical used elements from both the original stage version and the film. A 1982 film sequel, Grease 2 , included only a few supporting characters from the film and musical and had no involvement from Jacobs or Casey; Jacobs has gone on record to voice his disapproval of Grease 2 . The show's original production was directed by Guy Barile, choreographed by Ronna Kaye and produced by

16786-524: The national tour, performed as lead Danny Zuko, while Olivia Newton-John , an English Australian country-pop singer, was cast as Sandy; to accommodate the casting move, the character was rewritten as Australian immigrant Sandy Olsson (named after the maiden name of Ann-Margret , who was briefly considered for the role in the film), and parts of the score were replaced. Substantial portions of the script — which included replaced or reduced supporting character roles and added on-screen roles for characters unseen in

16940-418: The necessary encouragement for other gifted writers to create musical plays of their own". The two collaborators created an extraordinary collection of some of musical theatre's best loved and most enduring classics, including Carousel (1945), South Pacific (1949), The King and I (1951) and The Sound of Music (1959). Some of these musicals treat more serious subject matter than most earlier shows:

17094-410: The nickname "Greased Lightnin ' ". While the other greasers are skeptical of the car because it is in such poor shape, he is able to win them over with a rousing rock and roll number describing the modifications needed to transform it into a hot rod capable of arousing the ladies. The lyrics portray Kenickie (in the film, Danny) as more of a dreamer or even poseur than a real gearhead because some of

17248-766: The opening of Japan to Western trade for Pacific Overtures (1976), a legendary murderous barber seeking revenge in the Industrial Age of London for Sweeney Todd (1979), the paintings of Georges Seurat for Sunday in the Park with George (1984), fairy tales for Into the Woods (1987), and a collection of presidential assassins in Assassins (1990). While some critics have argued that some of Sondheim's musicals lack commercial appeal, others have praised their lyrical sophistication and musical complexity, as well as

17402-502: The orchestra that "weav[es] together excerpts of the score's famous melodies." There are various Eastern traditions of theatre that include music, such as Chinese opera , Taiwanese opera , Japanese Noh and Indian musical theatre , including Sanskrit drama , Indian classical dance , Parsi theatre and Yakshagana . India has, since the 20th century, produced numerous musical films, referred to as " Bollywood " musicals, and in Japan

17556-605: The original Chicago and Broadway productions. Unlike the school version, this version reinstated the raunchiness of the original show and references to Chicago locations. The sixth Burger Palace Boy was restored and named Miller. The Chicago production of The Original Grease opened on May 2 and closed on August 21. This version was presented once more in Australia in 2016 from April 6 to May 7. In Chicago, Adrian Aguilar played Danny and Kelly Davis Wilson played Sandy. A new production of Grease ran from 17 May to 29 October 2022 at

17710-464: The original production, for example, Bob Fosse 's choreography in Chicago . There is no fixed length for a musical. While it can range from a short one-act entertainment to several acts and several hours in length (or even a multi-evening presentation), most musicals range from one and a half to three hours. Musicals are usually presented in two acts, with one short intermission , and the first act

17864-643: The other hand, many successful musical theatre works have been adapted for musical films , such as West Side Story , My Fair Lady , The Sound of Music , Oliver! and Chicago . Musical theatre is closely related to the theatrical form of opera, but the two are usually distinguished by weighing a number of factors. First, musicals generally have a greater focus on spoken dialogue. Some musicals, however, are entirely accompanied and sung-through, while some operas, such as Die Zauberflöte , and most operettas , have some unaccompanied dialogue. Second, musicals usually include more dancing as an essential part of

18018-453: The part on Broadway, with Eric Schneider as Danny and Emily Padgett as Sandy. Lauren Ashley Zakrin replaced Emily Padgett as Sandy in October and Ace Young joined the tour as Danny on December 1, 2009. In 2011, a revival of the original Kingston Mines production was run in Chicago. It was titled The Original Grease and carried the tagline "Restored. Revised. R-Rated. Returned to Chicago". It featured songs and scenes from drafts of both

18172-558: The production was transferred to Teatro Nuevo Alcalá, Madrid , where it ran from October 14, 2008, to January 31, 2010, and then continued touring Spain until it finally closed on August 1, 2010, becoming one of Spain's all-time longest running musical productions, with 1,090 performances. Directed by Ricard Reguant, the original cast included Carlos Solano (later alternating the role with Tony Bernetti) as Danny Zuko, María Adamuz as Sandy (later Replaced by Edurne and Gisela ), and Elena Gadel as Betty Rizzo, A New Zealand Production, ran at

18326-576: The radio and crying over how much she misses Danny ("It's Raining on Prom Night"). Musical theatre Although music has been a part of dramatic presentations since ancient times, modern Western musical theatre emerged during the 19th century, with many structural elements established by the light opera works of Jacques Offenbach in France, Gilbert and Sullivan in Britain and the works of Harrigan and Hart in America. These were followed by Edwardian musical comedies , which emerged in Britain, and

18480-764: The relatively narrow confines of the 1950s. Rock music would be used in several Broadway musicals, beginning with Hair , which featured not only rock music but also nudity and controversial opinions about the Vietnam War , race relations and other social issues. After Show Boat and Porgy and Bess , and as the struggle in America and elsewhere for minorities' civil rights progressed, Hammerstein, Harold Arlen , Yip Harburg and others were emboldened to write more musicals and operas that aimed to normalize societal toleration of minorities and urged racial harmony. Early Golden Age works that focused on racial tolerance included Finian's Rainbow and South Pacific . Towards

18634-451: The revolution begun by Show Boat , by tightly integrating all the aspects of musical theatre, with a cohesive plot, songs that furthered the action of the story, and featured dream ballets and other dances that advanced the plot and developed the characters, rather than using dance as an excuse to parade scantily clad women across the stage. Rodgers and Hammerstein hired ballet choreographer Agnes de Mille , who used everyday motions to help

18788-587: The role of Rizzo that the cast album was re-released with her voice substituting for O'Donnell's. A U.S. national tour of the 1994 production started in September 1994 in New Haven, Connecticut , and ran for several years. The opening tour cast included Sally Struthers (Miss Lynch), who stayed with the tour for several years, Angela Pupello (Rizzo), Rex Smith (Danny), Trisha M. Gorman (Sandy), and Davy Jones (Vince Fontaine). Brooke Shields (Rizzo) started on

18942-547: The run included Jeff Conaway as Danny, Candice Earley as Sandy, John Lansing as Danny, Peter Gallagher as Danny, Richard Gere as Sonny, Ilene Graff as Sandy, Randee Heller as Rizzo, Marilu Henner as Marty, Judy Kaye as Rizzo, Marcia Mitzman Gaven as Rizzo, Patrick Swayze as Danny, John Travolta as Doody, Treat Williams as Danny, Laurie Graff as Frenchy, and Jerry Zaks as Kenickie. After an out-of-town tryout in Coventry , Grease made its London debut at

19096-415: The sentimental romance of operetta, adding technical expertise and the fast-paced staging and naturalistic dialogue style led by director George Abbott . The 1940s began with more hits from Porter, Irving Berlin , Rodgers and Hart, Weill and Gershwin, some with runs over 500 performances as the economy rebounded, but artistic change was in the air. Rodgers and Hammerstein 's Oklahoma! (1943) completed

19250-438: The show's basic plot as a subversion of common tropes of 1950s cinema, since the female lead, who in many 1950s films transformed the alpha male into a more sensitive and sympathetic character, is instead drawn into the man's influence and transforms into his wild, roguish fantasy. Since it was first performed on February 5, 1971, at Kingston Mines nightclub in Chicago, Grease has been successful on both stage and screen, but

19404-420: The show's opening number changed the history of musical theatre: "After a verse like that, sung to a buoyant melody, the banalities of the old musical stage became intolerable." It was the first "blockbuster" Broadway show, running a total of 2,212 performances, and was made into a hit film. It remains one of the most frequently produced of the team's projects. William A. Everett and Paul R. Laird wrote that this

19558-407: The show, although it sometimes consists of a series of songs not directly musically related. Spoken dialogue is generally interspersed between musical numbers, although "sung dialogue" or recitative may be used, especially in so-called " sung-through " musicals such as Jesus Christ Superstar , Falsettos , Les Misérables , Evita and Hamilton . Several shorter musicals on Broadway and in

19712-448: The stage version — were written in by Bronte Woodard . Grease was a major success both for Stigwood and for Paramount Pictures , the latter of which re-released the film several times; the film soundtrack made international hits out of several of the songs. Paramount also produced a sequel Grease 2 in 1982, which featured a younger class of students at Rydell High School led by Maxwell Caulfield and Michelle Pfeiffer . Grease 2

19866-476: The stage, most notably Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita . Others had no dialogue or were otherwise reminiscent of opera, with dramatic, emotional themes; these sometimes started as concept albums and were referred to as rock operas . Shows like Raisin , Dreamgirls , Purlie and The Wiz brought a significant African-American influence to Broadway. More varied musical genres and styles were incorporated into musicals both on and especially off-Broadway. At

20020-402: The standard for what was considered a successful show. These shows were designed for family audiences, a marked contrast from the risqué burlesques, bawdy music hall shows and French operettas that sometimes drew a crowd seeking less wholesome entertainment. Only a few 19th-century musical pieces exceeded the run of The Mikado , such as Dorothy , which opened in 1886 and set a new record with

20174-571: The storytelling, particularly by the principal performers as well as the chorus. Third, musicals often use various genres of popular music or at least popular singing and musical styles. Finally, musicals usually avoid certain operatic conventions. In particular, a musical is almost always performed in the language of its audience. Musicals produced on Broadway or in the West End, for instance, are invariably sung in English, even if they were originally written in another language. While an opera singer

20328-623: The summer of 1753, they performed ballad-operas, such as The Beggar's Opera , and ballad-farces. By the 1840s, P. T. Barnum was operating an entertainment complex in lower Manhattan. Other early musical theatre in America consisted of British forms, such as burletta and pantomime, but what a piece was called did not necessarily define what it was. The 1852 Broadway extravaganza The Magic Deer advertised itself as "A Serio Comico Tragico Operatical Historical Extravaganzical Burletical Tale of Enchantment." Theatre in New York moved from downtown gradually to midtown from around 1850 and did not arrive in

20482-442: The title number. The Burger Palace Boys' name is the T-Birds in this revival. The production ended on January 4, 2009, after 31 previews and 554 performances. At the announcement of its closure, the producers revealed that the production recouped its entire investment during its 52nd playing week. A West End revival opened at the Piccadilly Theatre , London on August 8, 2007, and ran for nearly four years (the longest running show in

20636-518: The top 40 in the United States. It was one of the few songs from the original Chicago-centric version of Grease to transition, uncut, from Chicago to Broadway and to film. Jim Jacobs later released a revised set of lyrics suitable for school performances that remove the sexual references (this "clean" version was also used in Fox's live television production of Grease ), and most televised edits of

20790-975: The tour in November 1994 before joining the Broadway cast. This tour, produced by the Troika Organization, was a non-union bus & truck playing mostly one-nighters and split week engagements primarily in smaller markets. The production, which ran for two years, was directed by Ray DeMatteis with choreography by Tony Parise and music direction by Helen Gregory. The original cast featured Randy Bobish (Danny Zuko), Nicole Greenwood (Sandy Dumbrowski), Gary Martin (Kenickie), Christine Hudman (Betty Rizzo), Timothy Quinlan (Roger), Kimberly Wharton (Jan), Bruce Smith (Doody), Kathleen Connolly (Frenchy), Jeffrey Shubart (Sonny LaTierri), Laura Hornberger (Marty), Debbie Damp (Patty Simcox), Michael Giambrone (Eugene Florczyk), Juan Betancourt (Johnny Casino), Jamie Patterson (Teen Angel), Holly Ann Kling (Cha-Cha DiGregorio) and Steven Sackman (Vince Fontaine). Frankie Avalon starred as

20944-415: The track team to prove himself; he leaves as Patty and Sandy practice cheering ("Rydell Fight Song"). As the Burger Palace Boys and Pink Ladies gather at the park, Danny reveals to the rest of the greasers that he has joined the track team, much to their dismay and skepticism. After Roger and Jan bicker about food, drink and religion, she asks him how he earned the nickname Rump; he explains that, as "King of

21098-679: The traditions of comic opera and used elements of burlesque and of the Harrigan and Hart pieces. He replaced the bawdy women of burlesque with his "respectable" corps of Gaiety Girls to complete the musical and visual fun. The success of the first of these, In Town (1892) and A Gaiety Girl (1893) set the style for the next three decades. The plots were generally light, romantic "poor maiden loves aristocrat and wins him against all odds" shows, with music by Ivan Caryll , Sidney Jones and Lionel Monckton . These shows were immediately widely copied in America, and Edwardian musical comedy swept away

21252-449: The villain in Oklahoma! is a suspected murderer and psychopath; Carousel deals with spousal abuse, thievery, suicide and the afterlife; South Pacific explores miscegenation even more thoroughly than Show Boat ; the hero of The King and I dies onstage; and the backdrop of The Sound of Music is the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938 . The show's creativity stimulated Rodgers and Hammerstein's contemporaries and ushered in

21406-464: The work's musical or dramatic content in defining into which art form the piece falls. Sondheim said, "I really think that when something plays Broadway it's a musical, and when it plays in an opera house it's opera. That's it. It's the terrain, the countryside, the expectations of the audience that make it one thing or another." There remains an overlap in form between lighter operatic forms and more musically complex or ambitious musicals. In practice, it

21560-420: Was A Chinese Honeymoon (1901), which ran for a record-setting 1,074 performances in London and 376 in New York. After the turn of the 20th century, Seymour Hicks joined forces with Edwardes and American producer Charles Frohman to create another decade of popular shows. Other enduring Edwardian musical comedy hits included The Arcadians (1909) and The Quaker Girl (1910). Virtually eliminated from

21714-420: Was a "show, that, like Show Boat , became a milestone, so that later historians writing about important moments in twentieth-century theatre would begin to identify eras according to their relationship to Oklahoma! ". "After Oklahoma! , Rodgers and Hammerstein were the most important contributors to the musical-play form... The examples they set in creating vital plays, often rich with social thought, provided

21868-454: Was adapted in 1978 as a feature film , which starred John Travolta (who himself had been in stage productions in a different role) and British-Australian singer and actress Olivia Newton-John , removed the musical's Chicago urban setting, and changed some plot elements, characters, and songs while adding new songs and elaborating on some plot elements only alluded to in the musical. Some of these revisions have been incorporated into revivals of

22022-579: Was after test runs of the original Chicago production had drawn extremely poor reviews that the production team transformed Grease into its familiar form. The new production, directed by Tom Moore and choreographed by Patricia Birch (who later choreographed the film adaptation, and directed the ill-fated sequel ), opened Off-Broadway at the Eden Theatre in lower Manhattan on February 14, 1972. Though Grease opened geographically off-Broadway, it did so under first class Broadway contracts. The show

22176-450: Was announced in May 2023. The principal cast was later revealed in June 2023 with Patti Newton as Miss Lynch, Marcia Hines as Teen Angel, Jay Laga’aia as Vince Fontaine, Annelise Hall as Sandy and Joseph Spanti as Danny Zuko. The Robert Stigwood Organization adapted Grease into a 1978 feature film, directed by Randal Kleiser . John Travolta , who had played Doody on Broadway and

22330-458: Was both a financial disappointment and a critical failure that Jim Jacobs disowned after its release. In the 2010s, work began on expanding the Grease brand into a full-fledged media franchise , with two prequels in production, Summer Lovin' (a film focusing on Danny and Sandy's summer before the events of the original Grease ) and Rise of the Pink Ladies (a television series documenting

22484-804: Was deemed eligible for the 1972 Tony Awards , receiving seven Tony Award nominations. On June 7, 1972, the production moved to the Broadhurst Theatre on Broadway , and on November 21, it moved to the Royale Theatre there, where it ran until January 27, 1980. For the five final weeks of the run, the show moved to the larger Majestic Theatre . By the time it closed on April 13, 1980, it had run 3,388 performances. The original Broadway cast included Barry Bostwick as Danny, Carole Demas as Sandy, Adrienne Barbeau as Rizzo, and Timothy Meyers as Kenickie, with Alan Paul , Walter Bobbie and Marya Small in supporting roles. Replacements later in

22638-468: Was dominated by musical theatre standards, such as " Fascinating Rhythm ", " Tea for Two " and " Someone to Watch Over Me ". Many shows were revues , series of sketches and songs with little or no connection between them. The best-known of these were the annual Ziegfeld Follies , spectacular song-and-dance revues on Broadway featuring extravagant sets, elaborate costumes and beautiful chorus girls. These spectacles also raised production values, and mounting

22792-586: Was fresher. Tolerance as an important theme in musicals has continued in recent decades. The final expression of West Side Story left a message of racial tolerance. By the end of the 1960s, musicals became racially integrated, with black and white cast members even covering each other's roles, as they did in Hair . Homosexuality has also been explored in musicals, starting with Hair , and even more overtly in La Cage aux Folles , Falsettos , Rent , Hedwig and

22946-510: Was praised by critics for its innovations in music and choreography but was less commercially successful than the same year's The Music Man , written and composed by Meredith Willson , which won the Tony Award for Best Musical that year. West Side Story would get a film adaptation in 1961, which proved successful both critically and commercially. Laurents and Sondheim teamed up again for Gypsy (1959), with Jule Styne providing

23100-542: Was produced by the Mexican actress and producer Julissa . In 1994, the musical was revived at the Hidalgo Theater in Mexico City, by producers Alejandro Ibarra and Julissa . The revival cast included Alejandro Ibarra , Juan Carlos Casasola , and Arturo G. Alvarez . A Spanish revival ran successfully at Teatre Victòria, Barcelona from October 3, 2006, to January 6, 2008. After a short national tour,

23254-416: Was succeeded by Shane Richie, Luke Goss , Ian Kelsey and Darren Day . The production's success led to the first British national tour which featured Shane Ritchie as Danny, Helen Way as Sandy, Toby Hinson as Vince Fontaine/Teen Angel, Ben Richards /Alex Bourne as Kenickie and Michele Hooper as Rizzo. The score included four songs written for the film adaptation: "Hopelessly Devoted to You", "Sandy", "You're

23408-412: Was the longest yet in Broadway history , although it was surpassed by A Chorus Line on September 29, 1983. It went on to become a West End hit, a successful feature film , two popular Broadway revivals in 1994 and 2007, and a staple of regional theatre , summer stock , community theatre , and high school and middle school drama groups. It remains Broadway's 17th longest-running show . Grease

23562-425: Was the French operetta The Chimes of Normandy in 1878 (705 performances). English comic opera adopted many of the successful ideas of European operetta, none more successfully than the series of more than a dozen long-running Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas, including H.M.S. Pinafore (1878) and The Mikado (1885). These were sensations on both sides of the Atlantic and in Australia and helped to raise

23716-470: Was unlicensed. Grease (musical) Grease is a musical with music, lyrics, and a book by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey . Named after the 1950s United States working-class youth subculture known as greasers and set in 1959 at the fictional Rydell High School in Northwest Chicago (based on Taft High School in Chicago, Illinois, and named after rock singer Bobby Rydell ),

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