It was a performance unlike any other and at moments, it felt like the audience was watching John Travolta, Stockard Channing or Olivia Newton John in the original Grease movie, but there were some elements that told of the times, such as riding back and forth in golf carts and of course the use of cellphones in the opening credits. There was also where Sandy was from, Salt Lake City, Utah as opposed to Australia, which was different, but it wasn’t that much of a problem to distract from the performance.
That being said, Grease Live, airing on Fox on January 31, 2016 was an exceptional 3 hour performance that had audiences both live and on the east and west coasts, cheering and singing along to the familiar hit songs by an entirely new generation for an equally new generation.
Grease live stars include Julianne Hough as Sandy, and the pink ladies, Vanessa Hudgens, as Rizzo, Keke Palmer as Marty, Carly Rae Jepsen as Frenchy, and Kether Donahue as Jan. The T-Birds were played by Carlos PenaVega as Kenickie, Jordan Fisher as Doody, David Del Rio as Putzie, Andrew Call as Sonny and Aaron Tveit as Danny Zuko.
One familiar from both the original Grease as well as Grease 2, Didi Conn came back as Vi, the waitress in the diner who helps “Frenchy” find her way back. Also another familiar face, Eve Plumb from The Brady Bunch series, played Mrs. Murdock which was a good selection for the role.
There were also special guest singers including R&B group Boys to Men performing, Beauty School Drop out, pop super star Jessie J opened with Grease is the Word and Mario Lopez both hosted the performance as well as “Bandstand”.
Overall, every solo performance was exceptional, like watching the original. Audiences in particular, awaited the iconic song sung by Stockard Channing in the original and they were not disappointed. Vanessa Hudgens, in spite of her recent loss of her father to cancer, hit every note of “There Are Worse Things I Could Do” and Twitter went crazy as audiences were encouraged to comment with the hash tag #gogrease throughout the live performance. It was clear that all the actors, studied their counterparts in order to channel and perform to do justice and pay homage to the original Grease that came out June 16, 1978.
For more information including when the soundtrack and DVD will be released go to Fox’ homepage.