My name is Dancin' Dan and I LOVED Grease! Live.
When Fox announced they were getting into the live musical game, with "America's Favorite Musical", Grease, there was reason to be skeptical. True, the home of American Idol seemed like a more natural fit for a live musical than NBC, but Grease is perhaps an even more iconic show than The Sound of Music, and we all know how that one turned out for NBC.
But then casting announcements kept rolling in, and they felt shockingly on point: Broadway heartthrob Aaron Tveit as bad-boy-with-a-heart-of-gold Danny Zuko. Dancing With the Stars alum Julianne Hough as eternal good girl Sandy Young. High School Musical star Vanessa Hudgens as bad girl Rizzo, pop star and Broadway Cinderella Carly Rae Jepsen as air-headed beauty school dropout Frenchie, former child star Keke Palmer as sex-obsessed Marty.... could this actually work?
Ever since The Sound of Music's huge ratings more productions were certain and the evolution has been interesting to watch. Each of NBC's live musicals have been an improvement over the last, but none have been perfect: Peter Pan was marred by odd casting choices and curious changes to the show, and The Wiz, despite being handily the best of the three, felt oddly flat and stagebound. None of them have truly felt right.
Have you ever watched Mary Martin's live telecasts of Peter Pan or the live written-for-TV Rogers & Hammerstein Cinderella? Somehow, they worked both as filmed stage show AND as television, something none of the NBC musicals have managed to do.
But for Grease! Live, Fox decided to take a huge risk and add a highly unpredictable element: A live audience.
Say what you like about this particular live audience, but you can't deny that in each of the previous live musicals, the transition out of musical numbers into book scenes was awkward; you could feel the desire of the performers, and even the show itself, to hold for applause. While it's true that the loud hoots and hollers at the end of Hough's fine "Hopelessly Devoted" and Hudgens's tremendous "There Are Worse Things I Could Do" ruined the emotion, that also would have happened in a theater setting. The electricity the live audience brought to the "Hand Jive" scene, though, was simply irreplaceable.
Grease's director, Tommy Kail, and producer, Marc Platt, understood that this is a stage show written with a live audience in mind. There are broad jokes that simply don't work if you don't have a live audience laughing at the punchline (this was one of the biggest problems in The Wiz, which is filled with hokey humor that completely died on screen). And big production numbers like "Greased Lightning" and "Summer Nights" need the applause to truly feel finished.
Right from the beginning, when the camera pulled back to reveal Sandy and Danny standing in front of a projection of the ocean and Jessie J burst forth with the movie's title song, strutting through the massive backlot and soundstages where the live telecast would be filmed, it was clear that this would be an entirely different production from NBC's decidedly stagebound productions. It was also clear it would have a youthful energy completely different from the NBC musicals and, even better, completely appropriate for the material.
Grease continued to play with the camera in a way completely its own, smashing the fourth wall to pieces in invigorating ways. For evidence, watch Keke Palmer daydream her way out of the Pink Ladies' slumber party and straight into a USO Show while singing about "Freddy, My Love":
There isn't anything even remotely like it in any of the three NBC musicals. Then they pulled a similar trick with the one-take "montage" of Danny trying out different sports to "Those Magic Changes". The production was full of these uniquely cinematic touches that took Grease! Live to a whole other level, and it was thrilling to watch.
The script was an odd amalgam of the movie screenplay and books from the various Broadway versions, but this was still recongizably Grease in all the ways that mattered (they even managed to do the car chase from the movie). Although musical theater afficianados will take issue with the removal of some of the songs (most notably "Mooning"), especially for the new "All I Need is an Angel" for Frenchie which sounded like it came from a completely different show, the cast was winning enough to smooth over the more questionable decisions. Hough found the perfect vehicle for her bland prettiness and dance skills. Tveit brought out Danny's heart even in his most "bad boy" moments. Hudgens fit the role of Rizzo like a glove, and Palmer brought the perfect level of arch-ness to Marty. And the adults were great, too: Ana Gasteyer was a riot as the school principal, and Mario Lopez \perfectly lecherous as Vince Fontaine. The only big negative I could see (aside from occasional sound issues), was how much the costumes begged for comparison with the iconic movie - it's a pretty tall order to compare to John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John & Company.
On the whole, Grease! Live felt like the lightning in a bottle NBC has been trying so desperately to catch with its live musicals. The energy of the show was matched by Zach Woodlee's choreography, and reflected in Kail's direction, which easily navigated between the numerous sets and gave the whole thing the feeling of a real event. While NBC's The Wiz may have made a stronger case for itself as a potential Broadway transfer, Grease made the best case of any live musical yet for itself as a live, filmed musical. And that's the best possible outcome anyone could have hoped for. So, take a bow!
OH WAIT. THEY DID.