Directing: Grease

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Grease

Printed From: Community Theater Green Room
Category: Producing Theater
Forum Name: Directing
Forum Discription: For questions about handling shows, actors, crew, board members, children ...or do we repeat ourselves?
URL: http://www.communitytheater.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=2937
Printed Date: 10/31/25 at 10:47am
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Topic: Grease

Posted By: Karin
Subject: Grease
Date Posted: 1/27/08 at 10:42am

Our middle school is performing Grease this May. I would love to hear any ideas or suggestions others directors have who have already done this. What worked for you, what didn't?

Thanks in advance for sharing your experiences!

Replies:

Posted By: JoeMc
Date Posted: 1/27/08 at 6:33pm

With the production apply the KISS principle with the set & mise en scene.

When I did it the first I designed the set, to be very simple, with just moveable rostra & a revolve. With the idea of the cast moving them, to create the various scences. As for grease lighting & the other car, these were profiled flats on a truck, which linked up on the revolve as the old car. As the revolved was moved around the other side of thre tuck, was revealed as grease lightning.

But the powers that be wanted everything realistic, two cars & involved settings.

The only thing I replocated from the film, was the flying of the two T Biirds actors in beauty school drop out.

No matter how you design the show, it inverabily is almost sold out, before the audition process is completed.

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[western] Gondawandaland
"Hear the light & see the sound!
TOI TOI CHOOKAS
{may you always play to a full house!}

Posted By: oldactress
Date Posted: 1/28/08 at 9:56am

My husband's school built greased lightning out of steel (he teaches welding) and fit it over a golf cart. Really looked great!

Posted By: Nyria
Date Posted: 2/18/08 at 5:46pm

We are perfoming this this week =) Are you doing the 'cleaned up' version? I agree with KISS. Even the professional touring show for this has really simple sets. The acting needs to be really big and showy - this is a FUN show and the audience wasnt to have fun.

Go on youtube and watch various examples of scenes from this show to see what has worked and what hasn't =)

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NYRIA

Posted By: John Luzaich
Date Posted: 2/27/08 at 1:09pm

And, it's funny that the original show started off-broadway at the Eden Theatre (previously known as the Phoenix Theatre) It almost closed there because it got mixed reviews. It would have never made it to Broadway if the lighting designer hadn't kicked in the last $5,000 to help finish off the fund raising needed to move it to Broadway.

John

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John
cfct@cfu.net
http://www.osterregent.org
http://www.facebook.com/osterregent

Posted By: Nyria
Date Posted: 2/29/08 at 6:28pm

Oh, something else -- for goodness sake - do not put Sandy in a fugly blonde wig. If your Sandy isn't blonde either dye her hair or (crazy idea) have a brunette Sandy. I have seen so many productions where they use a bad wig so Sandy can be blonde - it really takes away because that's all I can stare at - plus she looks cheap where she should look innocent.

We had a brunette Sandy - for 'Sexy Sandy' I bought one of those huge clip in ponytails so her hair magicaly got larger for the last scene but she did look damn sexy =) We pulled her bangs back in a headband and put red lips on her. We had people in the back helping her dress - she stepped into the shoes and one person buckled each shoe while another put on the ponytail and Sandy did her own lipstick.

Also - on the topic of Sexy Sandy - if you have a black bacjground (we did - black curtains) think about going with another colour for Sandy's costume - so she stands out -- I felt like she kind of got lost on the stage while the pink ladies jackets really stood out ;)

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NYRIA

Posted By: gaftpres
Date Posted: 3/21/08 at 5:12pm

For Beauty school dropouts, we used silver hairdresser capes and made the head pieces out of used toilet paper rolls wrapped with aluminum foil and glued to a shower cap. It looked fantastic. We found an old car in a field and totally gutted it out and cut it in half. This worked wonderful for the car scenes....... we had it positioned center stage and Rizzo, Sandy Danny and Kenickie came out at the beginning of curtain call in the car and jumped out for their bows. It was a f un fun fun show to do and what a sell out every night. Happy memories of that show.

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Old volunteers never die, they just get recycled!

Posted By: JoeMc
Date Posted: 3/21/08 at 9:13pm

I agree with Nyria - don't atempt to copy the aussie shiela [Olvia wots'erface] this is a major 'Blue'!

For Buaety School Dropout, I managed to get a loan of a double transverce harness A rails, from a production of Icarus, we did a years or so before. Which worked great flying two 'T'Birds across & in/out on stage. [I was a licenced rigger at the time - so it helped! it stole the show].

Also we used a banner with 'rydell high' over painted with 'GREASE' in rosco 'Invisable Blue'. At the finale we brought in a black boarder to mask the cast movement upstage, untill the tail of the cloth touched the deck. Then a black .Smother upstage of the boarder, set to just cover the head batten of the boarder & down stage of the cyc.

For the final curtain call all the cast wore a black T shirt with 'Grease' in fluro yellow.

the cast came on stage between the boarder & the smother. popping up

from under the tail batten of the smother & moving down stage in lines. While this was happening the stage was lit by UV [blacklight] & the grease appeared on the Rydell banner. We also used a trick cloth covering the blacklight tube [consentrated on the banner] that was jiggled so the word 'Grease' wording would flash on & off.

All simple stuff done cheaply.

-------------
[western] Gondawandaland
"Hear the light & see the sound!
TOI TOI CHOOKAS
{may you always play to a full house!}