On Friday, some of my friends and I went to Einstein High School's production of the musical Grease. Set in the 1950s, the show starts at the beginning of the school year at Rydell high, where Danny Zucco , a greaser and member of the Burger Palace Boys, is telling his friends about his summer fling. The new girl at Rydell, Sandy Dumbrowski , befriends the Pink Ladies, the Burger Palace Boys' girls. The story revolves around Sandy and Danny's on/off relationship, as well as Betty Rizzo and Kenickie's relatioinship, the head of the Pink Ladies and Danny's wingman, respectively.
This show is very different from the movie version of the show, and it followed the plot and score of the original Broadway production. Many of the songs in the stage musical were cut from the movie, and there are a few songs, such as "All Choked Up", that were replaced with different songs in the film version. (The One That I Want" wasn't in the original Broadway show.)
The production was pretty great; the set looked really good, the pit was almost always in tune, and most of the actors performed wonderfully.
The orchestra was very far upstage, at the back of the set. Over the pit was a walkway the actors strolled across, and on either side of the walkway were steps going to downstage left and right. The entire show was very colorful as well; the dresses were all very bright, and the set was painted with vivid blocks of color.
Overall, the cast was very good. Both Sandy (Abigail Kullberg) and Danny (Eric Teran) were great singers, and knew their lines very well. Kenickie, played by Daniel Zucker, who was performing in his first Einstein show, also did a great job, especially with the dancing and singing. The only principal actor who wasn't super was Rizzo (Rebecca Bradley). During her solo song, "There are Worse Things I Could Do", she got off key several times, and her voice quality wasn't great.
I thoroughly enjoyed the show, despite some not-so-great performances, as well as a few technical snafus regarding the sound.
Here's a clip from the London production of the show in 2010:
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