I am directing my first musical GREASE 'school version' and am having trouble blocking the play.  Is there anyone our there that has done this and would be willing to have a conversation about some of the scenes with suggestions on stage movement.  I would appreciate you sharing your experience with me.

 

 

Please explain?

 

 

Have fun with it.

Linda

I have another question maybe someone could answer.  IN Scene two (Cafeteria) when the stage is "split" with the Pink Ladies on one side and T-birds on the other... the light fades from one to the other depending on when they are talking.... how do I block entrances and exists.  For example, if the Pink Ladies are on stage left.... do they always come in and exit from stage left....   is it possible to have Rizzo, for example, enter from stage right if the T-birds are "frozen" in the dark behind her?

Here's the deal. You can do anything you want as long as you are consistant. You could have Rizzo come from the audience, the left, the right, the center, just make sure that if you do something that it really fits with rest of the show. Keep your entrances and transitions interesting short and clean. When you are making those transitions and scene changes think, "What is the most efficient way to get this done and still keep the audience entertained".

Have fun.

Linda

Of course you can. You must be asking the question because you see it that way. I went back and looked at the scene. The boys are supposedly eating lunch outside of the cafeteria while the girls are in the cafeteria. There are two ways to look at this and it depends on how you want to play it. If you want Rizzo to look like she is crossing another part of the school and doesn't see the boys have them freeze and have her cross in front. However if you think of the space in between them as shorter then what it actually is and the halfway point of the stage is like door. Where on one side are the boys outside and the other side is the girls inside, Rizzo could walk by the boys on her way to the cafeteria They wouldn't even have to freeze. They could nudge each other and acknowledge that she was there Once she hits the halfway mark they can go back to what they were doing before. She would then acknowledge the girls. As long as the girls and the boys don't interact with each other from either side of the stage this will work. It actually will set up the connection between the two spaces when later in that scene when the Pink Ladies bring Sandy over to the boys.

 

The only time it would be confusing is if you aren't consistant. If the way over to the girls is across the front of the stage in front of the boys, then the way back to to the boys is across the front of the stage.

 

Linda

My favorite scene is the park scene I have a park bench USR that Rizzo and Kenickie were making out. At one point he had a cigarette(fake) he head was on his lap, he leaned in to kiss her and she came up with the cigarette in her mouth. I cannot take credit for this, they came up with it on their own. It was very funny, not too noticable, but enough audience members saw it to laugh.

I could go on and on, but its not my vision its yours........... have fun and give the kids some lead and let them create too. You might be amazed at what they might think of to do.........within limits of course. lol