‘Grease’ is still the word with live Fox event
Julianne Hough, the star of Fox’s Grease Live!, has been rehearsing this for 20 years.
For her, Grease has been the word since she was 6 years old.
It was the 1978 movie version, starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, that captured Hough’s imagination.
“In my household, if you were not 13, you could not watch a PG-13 movie,” the dancer-singer-actress says. “So every time my dad would be at work or my mom would be out of the house, I would grab the VHS. I would literally watch it on repeat, over and over again.
“I would memorize the steps, the songs. I would even quote the movie. The whole thing.”
Now, years later, the Dancing With the Stars favorite and Footloose star has the lead role as sweet Sandy in a live TV version of the iconic musical, a toe-tapping celebration of 1950s nostalgia.
It airs at 6 p.m. Sunday on KDFW/Channel 4.
“There’s nothing like doing anything live, whether it’s dancing or singing or just being in front of a live audience,” Hough says. “The adrenaline and the feedback and the instant gratification … that is what excites me.”
A new mixture
The creative team behind Grease Live! is promising a show that will be something of a “hybrid.” It will combine elements of the long-running 1970s Broadway musical with ingredients of the film, one of the highest-grossing movie musicals of all time. Yet it will also feel fresh and new.
“We are creating an exciting new artistic language that incorporates the best of television and theater and yields an entirely new experience,” executive producer Marc Platt says. “We will have a live audience present that will be integrated into the sets in a way that they are essentially characters in the show.
“There will be moments when we will take the television audience behind the scenes, when our cast interacts with the television audience and when the elements of the show combine the fluidity of cinema with the magic of theater.”
One could even argue that, when it comes to Grease, live television and musical theater go together like “rama lama lama ka dinga da dinga dong.”
Grease tells the story of mismatched teenage lovers Danny and Sandy. They enjoyed a magical Summer Nights fling, but now they’ve got to figure out how to make it work all the time at Rydell High.
They’re from different worlds — yet, as Sandy proclaims in song, they’re “hopelessly devoted.” How can Danny maintain his rebel image with the T-Birds while still trying to be the cute boy Sandy thought she knew? How can Sandy preserve her good-girl image after joining the Pink Ladies?
In addition to Hough, who’s in the role that Newton-John played in the film, the main cast includes Broadway star Aaron Tveit (as Danny, the Travolta role), High School Musical ex Vanessa Hudgens (Rizzo), pop-music hitmaker Carly Rae Jepsen (Frenchy), Carlos PenaVega of Big Time Rush (Kenickie) and Keke Palmer (Marty).
“Seeing it the last couple of weeks as it has come alive in rehearsal has really been so exciting,” says Zach Woodlee, a Dallas native who’s in charge of the choreography. “The whole cast is doing a great job with these characters.
“It’s not easy to pull off an iconic show, but the work they’re doing to become our Sandy and our Danny and our Rizzo, all of these characters, it’s really amazing to watch.”
Broadway on TV
Airing live musical versions of classic Broadway shows has become one of the hottest trends in television.
NBC popularized it in 2013 with The Sound of Music Live! and Carrie Underwood in the role that Julie Andrews made famous. The network followed with Peter Pan Live! in 2014 and The Wiz Live! in 2015.
Later this year, Fox will put on a live version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, while NBC is pumping its efforts into a live presentation of Hairspray.
Bringing back these classic musicals and reinventing them on television is almost a public service.
“I think it’s great for people who aren’t able to get to New York and to Broadway to see musicals,” says Woodlee, who before this was the choreographer and co-producer for Glee. “There’s a different energy that you get from live musical theater, and I love that we can bring that to people.
“There’s pressure to get it right, of course, but it’s very exciting.”
Grease Live!
- 6 p.m. Sunday
- KDFW/Channel 4
This story was originally published January 27, 2016 at 10:52 AM with the headline "‘Grease’ is still the word with live Fox event."