The 1978 hit film Grease was preceded by the musical theater production Grease, which first premiered in Chicago in 1971 and moved to Broadway a year later for more than 3,000 performances.
Now, in honor of the show’s 50th anniversary, there is a book, Grease. An original Broadway production.
Released in June, the collection is compiled by Tom Moore, who directed the original Broadway show, Ken Weisman, producer, and Adrian Barbeau, the actress who played Lizzo for the first five months and inspired the idea for the book. .
“It stemmed from a Zoom meeting the original cast had when the pandemic first shut everything down,” Barbeau recalled from his home in Los Angeles. “The meeting lasted about four and a half hours. However, the stories that everyone told were so fun, moving, and interesting that most of them were new to me because I left the show early.”
Barbeau then sent an email to Zoom attendees asking if they should “do something” with their amazing stories. She soon got a call from director Moore, who agreed, saying he had been thinking along the same lines for years.
“We hired Ken, who has access to a lot of never-before-seen photos (production and behind-the-scenes photos) and also has a memory of Steeltrap,” Barbeau said. “We then sent out a survey to the more than 100 actors, musicians and staff involved in the show and asked them to write down the stories they worked on. We put it all together as a wonderful tribute to the show.”
Surprisingly, Barbeau has no memory of opening night on Valentine’s Day 1972.
“Other people in the book remember it, but I’m one of those people who don’t always remember things like that,” she said with a laugh. I was nominated, but I don’t even remember going to the Tony Awards! but it was $34 and I still have it.”
But she remembers her last “Grease” performance in June.
“I was standing in the wings waiting for my song and I looked over and there were four or five hairy butts staring at me on the other side. I was mooning Rizzo!
And to this day, Barbeau has yet to see a theatrical version that differs from the original play in many ways, including some of the music.
“I happened to hear one of the songs in the movie a long time ago and it was one of my songs,” she recalled. “It was great what they did with it, but it wasn’t what we did. So in order to preserve the memory of the show and not cloud it with another version, we decided not to watch the movie.
Her career began in musical theater, but she left Grease to co-star in the television comedy Maude throughout the 1970s. However, in the early 80s, the actress starred in several horror/sci-fi films (“The Fog,” “Escape from New York,” “Swamp Thing,” and “Creepshow”), and her cinematic success as a horror sex symbol has been growing. You’ve cemented your position forever (see abarbeau.com).
“People always say you were a sex symbol, but I want to remind you that my first love scene in a movie was with a swamp monster!” “I started out in musicals and comedies, but the move to more dramatic roles was never intentional. I ended up playing strong women who weren’t, always victims, and they often played interesting and challenging roles.”
As for “Grease,” Barbeau is still in touch with many of the original cast.
“We were about the same age and the same early in our careers,” she said. “I still see groups of girls — I still call them girls — here in LA who get together for birthdays and lunches. Grease has been a life-changing career for many of us. It’s an experience and when you read the book you realize how wonderful it was to be part of the “Grease” family. ”
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