3 on the Billboard Hot 100, respectively. “Summer Nights” and Olivia Newton-John‘s swoony ballad “Hopelessly Devoted to You” hit No. They set their sweet love story of two kids working up the courage to be themselves in a world of teen issues - pregnancy, social pressure, abortion - to a soundtrack of vintage-inspired originals that were meant to make young audiences dance and older audiences feel young again. In 1971, Warren Casey and Jim Jacobs wrote a little musical about life in 1958, at Chicago’s rough-and-tough Taft High School, and based many of the characters on their friends. Grease was nostalgic from the very start. Watch Vanessa Hudgens and ‘Grease: Live!’ Cast Rehearsing ‘Grease Is the Word’: Exclusive Video Kail calls out “Cut!” to a hail of giggles, as another T-bird comes in with the punch line: “Crushed it!” Hough and her beloved Danny Zuko - Broadway star Aaron Tveit - sing the song’s teasing verses: “She swam by me, she got a cramp…” “He ran by me, got my suit damp…” As Danny and Sandy move in for the final verse, one of the T-Birds strikes a pose on a cardboard box and - crunch! - it collapses underneath him. Hough, who grew up Mormon in Utah and says she had to sneak viewings of her parents’ Grease laser disc because it was so “racy,” may be just perfect to play the innocent Sandy. With all assembled and the music kicking in, the Pink Ladies circle the new girl, Sandy, played by singer, Dancing With the Stars champ and Dirty Grandpa actress Julianne Hough, 27. (The show’s budget is reportedly about $16 million.) Not that there are visible jitters among the actors on set - seven of them separately say the rehearsals feel “like summer camp.” “This will be the biggest radio, mic and footprint any company has ever done,” he says. Rudzinski says handheld cameras will push into the action for close-ups that have more in common with an NFL game than Great Performances. (Paramount Pictures, which owns the rights, put the initial package together with Kail.) Kail touts the old-fashioned theater tricks he plans for Grease: Live - vaudeville-style quick changes (with Tony-winning designer William Ivey Long, who says the clothes will be “tighter, shorter, sexier”) and turntable sets - as well as big gestures only possible on TV. Which is why, in addition to hiring a brash crew of pop-star actresses, Fox brought in Tommy Kail, the 38-year-old director of revered Broadway sensation Hamilton, to direct with Alex Rudzinski, 43, a vet of Dancing With the Stars. ‘Grease: Live!’ Cast: The Billboard Cover Shoot Only not in "Grease," EVEN THOUGH IT WAS NEVER MEANT TO BE A FAMILY MUSICAL.Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta as Sandy and Danny in 1978's Grease. Just to make clear the inconsistency here, Fox has left in "did she put up a fight." And this is the network that aired "Scream Queens," where some spectacular vulgarity was offered on the air. "With new pistons, plugs and shocks, I can get off my rocks," which "Glee" kept in, is now ". In other words, completely different from what the song meant to say (unless we are meant to ponder what is being peeled out with greased lightning).Ĥ. The "shit/tit" rhyme - turned into "crap/that" on "Glee" - is "You know without a doubt I'm gonna peel out" for Fox. (When "Glee" did "Grease," it went with "honey wagon.")ģ. "Pussy wagon" is now "dream wagon" WHICH DOES NOT EVEN SCAN CORRECTLY. "Cream" has been changed to "scream" (which is a pretty standard censoring of the song).Ģ. But, if the lyrics Fox sent out with its press kit for the show are accurate, then the network is pushing censorship even more in its telecast. The "Grease"-for-the-whole family persists to this day, even though the movie has been bowdlerized for some telecasts (specifically, when "cream" in "Greased Lightning" is changed to "scream"). (What does Sandy learn at the end? You can get your man by acting slutty? What do the guys discuss in "Summer Nights" - including the creepy question "did she put up a fight"?) Parents complained loudly because somehow - possibly through the John Travolta/Olivia Newton-John movie - they had the idea that "Grease" was fun, family entertainment instead of what it was: a musical about getting laid. Years ago, I went to a road-company production of "Grease" with all the original vulgarity intact (and, it appeared, a little more added to the performance). 31 - and not just because the network is calling this America's favorite musical: Notes regarding Fox's "Grease Live!" coming Jan.
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