ALL ABOUT THE MUSICAL "GREASE"
With a hip-shaking rock ’n’ roll score featuring hits like “Summer Nights,” “Greased Lightnin’” and “We Go Together,” Grease celebrates Rydell High’s class of 1959 in all their duck-tailed, bobby-soxed, gum-snapping glory!
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Named after the 1950s United States working-class youth subculture known as greasers and set in 1959 at the fictional Rydell High School in Northwest Chicago, the musical follows ten working-class teenagers as they navigate the complexities of peer pressure, politics, personal core values, and love.
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The first Broadway production opened in 1972; when it closed in 1980, Grease's 3,388-performance run was the longest yet in Broadway history! It went on to become a West End hit, a successful feature film, have two popular Broadway revivals, and become a staple of regional theatre, summer stock, community theatre, and high school and middle school drama groups. It remains Broadway's 17th longest-running show!
CASTING
Generally, at ACT-1 we are open to gender-blind/re-gendered casting. Therefore, please audition for whatever roles you are attracted to!
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However, please try to choose the roles that best reflect your talents. Just because you like a role doesn't mean you are well-suited for it, and you'll want to have the strongest audition possible!
As you get to know the show and the music, please pay attention to the characters' vocal ranges and required skill sets. Sometimes we can slightly adjust the key of a character's solo song, but we do prefer to keep accompaniment in the original key as much as possible.
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Carefully read the character descriptions and requirements below, and let us know if you have any questions!
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ROLES/CHARACTER BREAKDOWNS
Danny Zuko
Vocal range: Tenor (D4-B5)
Character's Gender: Male
Character's Age: High School teen
Character's Ethnicity: Any
​The leader of the Burger Palace Boys; good-looking, strong and confident, with an air of easy-going charm.
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Sandy Dumbrowski
Vocal range: Soprano (A3-F#5)
Character's Gender: Female
Character's Age: High School teen
Character's Ethnicity: Any
​New girl in town; sweet, wholesome, naive, cute, and innocent.
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Betty Rizzo
Vocal range: Alto (A3-C5)
Character's Gender: Female
Character's Age: High School teen
Character's Ethnicity: Any
​Leader of the Pink Ladies; tough, sarcastic, and outspoken but vulnerable.
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Frenchy
Vocal range: Alto (A3-D5)
Character's Gender: Female
Character's Age: High School teen
Character's Ethnicity: Any
​​A dreamer; good-natured but not too smart, she is heavily made up, fussy about her appearance, particularly her hair. She can't wait to finish high school so she can be a beautician.
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Marty
Vocal range: Alto (C4-C5)
Character's Gender: Female
Character's Age: High School teen
Character's Ethnicity: Any
The 'beauty' of the Pink Ladies; pretty and looks older than the other girls, but betrays her real age when she opens her mouth. She tries to act sophisticated.
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Jan
Vocal range: Alto (A3-C5)
Character's Gender: Female
Character's Age: High School teen
Character's Ethnicity: Any
​Funny, loud, compulsive eater, and awkward member of the Pink Ladies. Loud and pushy with the girls, but shy with boys.
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Doody
Vocal range: Tenor (D4-A5)
Character's Gender: Male
Character's Age: High School teen
Character's Ethnicity: Any
​The youngest of the guys; small, boyish, and open, with a disarming smile and a hero-worshipping attitude towards the other guys. He also plays the guitar.
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Kenickie
Vocal range: Tenor (C4-F5)
Character's Gender: Male
Character's Age: High School teen
Character's Ethnicity: Any
The second in command of the Burger Palace Boys; tough-looking, tattooed, surly, and avoids any show of softness. He has an offbeat sense of humor.
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Sonny Latierri
Vocal range: Baritone (G3-A5)
Character's Gender: Male
Character's Age: High School teen
Character's Ethnicity: Any
​A member of the Burger Palace Boys; funny Italian-American, he is a braggart and wheeler-dealer who thinks he's a real lady-killer.
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Roger
Vocal range: Tenor (D4-A5)
Character's Gender: Male
Character's Age: High School teen
Character's Ethnicity: Any
The anything-for-a-laugh stocky type of boy; a clown who enjoys winding people up, he is full of mischief and is always dreaming up half-baked schemes and ideas.
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Vince Fontaine
Vocal range: Flexible
Character's Gender: Male
Character's Age: High School teen
Character's Ethnicity: Any
A typical 'teen audience' disc jockey; slick, egotistical and fast-talking. He is also a veteran 'Greaser.'
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Cha Cha aka Charlene Digregorio
Vocal range: Alto (C4-C5)
Character's Gender: Female
Character's Age: High School teen
Character's Ethnicity: Any
The best dancer at St. Bernadette's; a loud mouth, she wins the dancing competition with Danny.
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Eugene Florczyk
Vocal range: Tenor (A3-E5)
Character's Gender: Male
Character's Age: High School teen
Character's Ethnicity: Any
The class valedictorian; physically awkward, with weak eyes and a high-pitched voice. He's a typical 'apple-polisher' - both smug and pompous, but gullible.
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Johnny Casino
Vocal range: Tenor (G4-E5)
Character's Gender: Male
Character's Age: High School teen
Character's Ethnicity: Any
All-American, rock-star “greaser” student at Rydell High, whose real name is Clarence.
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Miss Lynch
Vocal range: Flexible
Character's Gender: Female
Character's Age: Adult
Character's Ethnicity: Any
A no-nonsense, serious, loud English teacher.
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Patty Simcox
Vocal range: Alto (D4-A4)
Character's Gender: Female
Character's Age: High School teen
Character's Ethnicity: Any
​A typical cheerleader; attractive, athletic, sure-of-herself, but can be given to bursts of disconcerting enthusiasm. She's a bit of a pain and unpopular with the Pink Ladies, and can twirl a baton.
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Teen Angel
Vocal range: Tenor (E4-F5)
Character's Gender: Male
Character's Age: Flexible
Character's Ethnicity: Any
Frenchy's suave and slick guardian angel, who encourages her to stay in school.
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The Pink Ladies Ensemble
​The club-jacketed, gum-chewing, hip-swinging girls' gang who hang around with the Burger Palace Boys.
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The Burger Palace Boys
A super-cool, DA-haired, hard-looking group of high school wheeler-dealers... or so they think.
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Bit Parts
​Radio Voice: Male, Age Flexible (Range: Tenor, A3–C5)
A Radio Voice
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Ensemble
ADDITIONAL INFO
SHOW HISTORY
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​ORIGINAL BROADWAY PRODUCTION
The score borrows heavily from the sounds of early rock and roll. In its original production in Chicago, Grease was a raunchy, raw, aggressive, vulgar show. Subsequent productions toned down the more risqué content. The show mentions issues such as peer pressure, love, friendship, teenage rebellion, and other theme's of adolescence.
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Since it was first performed in 1971 in Chicago, and then brought to Broadway, the content has been cleaned up and its teenage characters have become less Chicago habitués and more generic.
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ORIGINAL FILM
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OTHER FILM AND TV PRODUCTIONS
A 1982 film sequel, Grease 2, included only a few supporting characters from the film and musical.
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In 2016, in the wake of similar productions that NBC had performed for other musicals, Fox broadcast a live production of Grease, known as Grease: Live, as a television special. The TV musical used elements from both the original stage version and the film.