Well it’s almost sold out. Tickets remain for the matinee, but otherwise, we’re full up. Can’t shove any more bodies in there. How about that?
We sort of expected it would happen for a popular show like this. I just hope we can live up to everyone’s expectations. From the movie, I mean. Thing is, the Broadway show bears limited resemblance to the film version in many places. Profanity and general raunchiness are the biggest differences; they cleaned up a lot of it for the movie. And since we’re doing the “school version” (written by original Grease scriptwriter Warren Casey so schools in more conservative districts — like mine — could do the show), there are also several plot omissions.
For instance, there’s no pregnancy issue with Rizzo. It’s been completely excised from the story. And of course, all profanity has been removed and some lyrics replaced (most notably, the words to “Look at Me, I’m Sandra Dee” and “Greased Lightnin'”).
Actually, the book was so squeaky clean, we replaced a few of the lines with their original counterparts. For instance, the school version has Danny singing (in “Summer Nights”), “We told jokes under the dock…”
Seriously? Hahaha yeah, we changed that back to “We made out…”. Some of the changes are ridiculous.
Some people may not realize that three signature songs from the movie — “Hopelessly Devoted to You,” “Grease is the Word (main theme),” and “You’re the One That I Want” — are not included in the Broadway version. We added “You’re the One” and “Hopelessly” — I just had to write my own arrangements of them, and there’s a line of text we had to add to the program for copyright purposes. That said, there are a few songs in the Broadway version (and not in the film) that are fantastic!
And “Greased Lightnin'”? That’s Kenickie’s feature, not Danny Zuko’s. Travolta put his foot down in the movie production, reportedly insisting that the song be his.
Um, question to Samuel French (the pirates): If everyone wants to include the songs from the movie anyway, why not just put them in the original score??
Still, all craziness and idiotic complications aside, this has been a good run, and I hope they’re up to the task next weekend.
Next weekend. Oy.
Days of school left: 15
