Grease (musical)
| Musical dates | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Grease |
| Original language: | English |
| Music: | Warren Casey , Jim Jacobs |
| Book: | Warren Casey, Jim Jacobs |
| Lyrics: | Warren Casey, Jim Jacobs |
| Premiere: | 1971 |
| Place and time of the action: | Summer 1959 in a small American town |
| Roles / people | |
The Pink Ladies:
The Burger Palace Boys (T-Birds):
Other roles:
and other students |
|
Grease is the title of a musical by Warren Casey and Jim Jacobs , which premiered in 1971 as a five-hour amateur production in Chicago and on February 14, 1972 on Broadway at the Eden Theater. With 3388 performances, the musical ran in various theaters on Broadway for a total of seven and a half years.
action
Grease is the English term for "smear" and stands for the pomade that male high school students used to shape their hairstyles in the 1950s. It also refers to the song Greased Lightnin ' that the Burger Palace Boys sing. The musical is about a romance in a high school environment.
The action is set in the 1950s: Sandy, a good, rather shy girl, and Danny, the leader of the Burger Palace Boys and swarm of girls, get to know each other during the summer vacation. Sandy moves the following autumn. She now goes to the same school as Danny, Rydell High School, but does not know this. Sandy quickly finds girlfriends, the Pink Ladies , the most popular girls in school. She tells them about her summer love, and Danny can't avoid raving about Sandy either. When Sandy reveals the name of her beloved to her friends, they take her straight to Danny. At first he is happy to see Sandy again, but he is cool in front of his friends and lets them down .
A few days later, the Pink Ladies are having a slumber party at Frenchy. The girls smoke and drink alcohol, but because Frenchy wants to pierce Sandy’s ears, she feels sick. While Sandy is in the bathroom, Rizzo, the leader of the Pink Ladies , makes fun of her. Sandy tries successfully to make Danny jealous. She and Danny are getting closer and closer, and Danny appears with Sandy at the school's big dance competition. But when Sandy is sent off the dance floor, only Danny and Cha-Cha, Danny's ex-girlfriend, a hot salsa dancer, are left. Danny dances very closely with Cha-Cha and Sandy runs away sadly. She says she never wants to see him again.
Now Danny and Sandy are in the drive- in theater . As a proof of his love, Danny gives Sandy a ring, but when he gets too close, Sandy escapes. Danny now realizes that Sandy is his great love. He decides to change just for her and wants to devote himself to school sports. At the end of the school year, Sandy comes in a new look, no longer good and shy, but very feminine. When Danny sees her, he is absolutely thrilled and only has Sandy on his mind. Now other couples find each other again.
Music track
Grease has seen numerous changes over the decades. Some songs have been replaced by others, the order has been changed, etc. The original version was this:
| first act | Second act |
|---|---|
|
|
The additional titles of the film were added in later versions.
| first act | Second act |
|---|---|
|
|
The additional titles are by Barry Gibb ( Grease ), John Farrar ( Hopelessly Devoted to You and You're the One that I Want ), Louis St. Louis / Scott Simon ( Sandy ).
Productions
premiere
Grease premiered at the Eden Theater on Broadway in New York on February 14, 1972. Tom Moore directed it, while Patricia Birch choreographed the piece. The main roles Danny and Sandy were played by Barry Bostwick and Carole Demas. In 1972 Grease was nominated for seven Tony Awards . In seven and a half years, the musical was performed a total of 3,388 times there alone and in 1979 was the longest-running musical on Broadway.
European premiere
In June 1973 the London production opened at the New London Theater . Among the actors was the then unknown Richard Gere , who played Danny, while Kim Braden took on the role of Sandy. However, the production was less successful and was discontinued after nine months.
With the film adaptation in 1978, in which John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John took over the leading roles, a real grease boom broke out and the demand for musical production increased, so that the productions were reissued in London and New York.
New staging
In 1993 the new production celebrated its premiere under director David Gilmore in London's West End, where it is still played today as one of the most successful musicals.
German language productions
The German-language premiere of the previously very successful Broadway production was in 1994 at the Raimundtheater in Vienna. The texts were spoken in German, but the songs were left in their original English.
In 1995 the German musical producers Thomas Krauth and Michael Brenner received the rights for Grease in German-speaking countries. They produced the Vienna version as a new production and showed it first in Frankfurt in the Alte Oper (August / September 1995) and then in Zurich in the former Cats Theater (September to December 1995).
A month later, the theater makers Krauth and Brenner brought the cult musical to the stage as a large en-suite production : On January 20, 1996, Grease celebrated its premiere at the Capitol Theater in Düsseldorf , which the two producers opened with this production. With a playing time of three years (until December 31, 1998) and around 1.2 million visitors, the successful Fifties musical made Düsseldorf a place in the ranks of the renowned musical cities.
Directed and choreographed by Dennis Callahan and with Mike Dixon as musical supervisor, the Düsseldorf musical production in Germany was the one with the longest running time in one place.
In 1998 Krauth and Brenner presented another production of this production: In Berlin , in the Theater des Westens , the romantic high school musical played in front of a sold out house from September to December.
In the following years there were almost uninterrupted tours, including a new production of the musical in the original language, through various German and European cities until Semmel Concerts took over the musical as tour organizer in 2001. The Bayreuth concert and event company relied on the language mix of German texts and original English songs and toured Germany and German-speaking European countries in 2001/2002, 2003/2004 and 2006/2007. "Grease - Das Musical", a version specially revised by David Gilmore for the German-speaking area, was shown for nine weeks at the Capitol Theater Düsseldorf from November 16, 2010, after which it was performed in four other major German cities:
Grease - the musical . New tour production (2010/2011):
| city | theatre | begin | The End |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dusseldorf | Capitol Theater | 11/16/2010 | 02/12/2011 |
| Bremen | Musical theater | 02/15/2011 | 02/27/2011 |
| Berlin | Admiralspalast | 03/01/2011 | 03/20/2011 |
| Munich | German theater | 03/22/2011 | 04/17/2011 |
| Frankfurt am Main | Old opera | 04/19/2011 | 05/01/2011 |
Awards
Tony Award 1972
Nominations
- Best Musical (Kenneth Waissman, Maxine Fox)
- Best musical libretto (Jim Jacobs, Warren Casey)
- Best Actor in a Musical (Barry Bostwick)
- Best Supporting Actor in a Musical (Timothy Meyers)
- Best Supporting Actress in a Musical (Adrienne Barbeau)
- Best Costumes (Carrie F. Robbins)
- Best Choreography (Patricia Birch)
Theater World Award 1972
- Adrienne Barbeau
Drama Desk Award 1972
- Outstanding choreography (Patricia Birch)
- Most Promising Costumes (Carrie F. Robbins)
Adaptations
- In 1978 the musical was filmed with John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John in the leading roles (see Grease (film) ). The film was produced by the British film and music producer Robert Stigwood . A year earlier he had also brought the film Saturday Night Fever into the cinemas, through which John Travolta - who also played the leading role here - achieved worldwide fame.
- In 1982 a film sequel followed ( Grease 2 ), which was less successful.
Others
- Olivia Newton-John , leading actress in the Grease movie alongside John Travolta , attended the musical premiere in Düsseldorf's Capitol Theater in 1996 . Five days before the premiere, she performed with the Düsseldorf Grease Ensemble as a star guest on the TV show “ Wetten, dass ..? " on.
- Anna Montanaro , one of the most famous German musical actresses, began her career with the musical Grease in Düsseldorf. Here she was seen in the lead role "Sandy". She later went to New York on Broadway as the third German musical artist (after Hildegard Knef and Ute Lemper ) and is now one of the international musical greats.
- During the Grease season at the Capitol Theater in Düsseldorf , the French car manufacturer Renault launched the special “Renault Twingo Grease” model with a large-scale advertising campaign.
CD
Grease - Das Musical , soundtrack to the original German performance, ELE 700 080, copyright: 1995 by Intershow Records, label code: LC0193
Web links
- Grease in the Internet Broadway Database
- musical-grease.de ("Grease" - the cult musical with one of the most beautiful rock'n'roll love stories in the world!)
- Trailer performance example musicals on youtube.de; Retrieved November 7, 2011
- TV appearance of the Düsseldorf production of Grease (1996–1998) on “The Big Lot” with Dieter Thomas Heck ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqmVHPFCXNo )
- TV appearance of the Düsseldorf production of Grease (1996–1998) on “Wetten, dass ..?” On January 15, 1996 ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRRk5vUpF0M )
Individual evidence
- ↑ It all started with "Grease". Interview with the Düsseldorf producer Thomas Krauth on rp-online. January 19, 2006, accessed March 29, 2017 .
- ↑ Musical impresario Thomas Krauth celebrates success with Schmalz and Schmackes. Article on focus.de. October 27, 2003. Retrieved March 29, 2017 .
- ↑ Olivia Newton-John with the Düsseldorf Grease Ensemble at Wetten dass ..? January 15, 1996. Retrieved March 29, 2017 .