Tony Award winning musical “Grease,” is the first show of The Whidbey Playhouse Season of Love. Directors Allenda Jenkins and Eric George are holding auditions for Grease from 2-5 p.m. on Saturday, May 21 and Sunday, May 22 in the Star Studio.
Be prepared to sing 16 bars of “Hopelessly Devoted to You,” “There are Worse Things I Could Do,” ” Beauty School Dropout” or “Greased Lightnin’” and to sing 16 bars of a song from any Broadway show of your choice. There will be an accompanist available. The audition sheet music and character descriptions with vocal ranges can be picked up at the Whidbey Playhouse during office hours. The choreographers will teach a short dance combination to all auditioners on the day of auditions. Call backs are 6-8 p.m., Tuesday, May 24. There will be cold readings from selected scenes at call backs.
“Grease” opens Friday, Sept. 9, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Tony Award winning musical. Performances run 7:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and Sunday matinee at 2:30 pm through Sunday, Oct. 2. The Whidbey Playhouse is located at 730 SE Midway Blvd. The Star Studio is located at the back of the parking lot behind the theater. Visit our website www.whidbey playhouse.com or call us at 360-679-2237.
Rydell High’s senior class of 1959: duck-tailed, hot-rodding “Burger Palace Boys” and their gum-snapping, hip-shaking “Pink Ladies” in bobby sox and pedal pushers, evoke the look and sound of the 1950s in this rollicking musical. Head “greaser” Danny Zuko and new (good) girl Sandy Dumbrowski try to relive the high romance of their “Summer Nights” as the rest of the gang sings and dances its way through such songs as “Greased Lightnin’,” and “Born to Hand-Jive,” recalling the music of Buddy Holly, Little Richard, and Elvis Presley that became the soundtrack of a generation. An eight-year run on Broadway and two subsequent revivals, along with innumerable school and community productions place Grease among the world’s most popular musicals.
Grease debuted Off-Broadway on Feb. 14, 1972 at the Eden Theatre in New York City. The show transferred to Broadway’s Broadhurst Theatre, and later to the Royale Theatre, closing on April 13, 1980 after a record-breaking 3,388 performances. The film adaptation of Grease premiered in 1978 and became the highest-grossing movie musical of all time. Grease returned to Broadway twice, in a 1994 revival directed and choreographed by Jeff Calhoun and a 2007 revival directed and choreographed by Kathleen Marshall.
