Neighborhood News: Back to school with Norwood Park’s own musical “Grease”
“Summer Lovin, had me a blast. Summer Lovin, happened so fast. Met a girl, crazy for me. Met a boy, cute as can be…”
“Summer Nights” from the “Grease” soundtrack
As the kids tumble out of their beds in the morning and prepare to go back to school, I got to thinking…the ultimate back-to-school celebration that is “Grease,” the ultimate (and original) high school musical, was based on the experiences of actor/writer Jim Jacobs, a graduate of Norwood Park’s Taft High School.
While the movie “Grease” with John Travolta and the late Olivia Newton-John is the version most famous, the original play was darker, used more colorful language, and was filled with Chicago references, including Polk Brothers (a large home appliance store in Chicago), Carson’s (Carson Pirie Scott department store), the Palmer House (famed Chicago hotel), Elmer and the Elephant (Chicago-based childrens show), Jim Lounsbury (host of a sock-hop television program), and Field’s (Marshall Field’s department store, now Macy’s), per Ovrtur.com.
While the production has been adapted to fit any school, at any time, the core story of Danny Zuko, Sandy Dumbrowski (Olsson for the movie) and the T-Birds and Pink Ladies experiencing the pains of growing up remains the same. That’s kept it in the public eye for 55 years.
The Story of Grease: Norwood Park’s own Jim Jacobs
According to Wikipedia sources, when Jim Jacobs was a teenager, he would imitate playing a guitar with a broomstick. He eventually convinced his parents to pay for guitar lessons. After four lessons, he quit and decided to buy a guitar book and teach himself. From this, he found a simple chord structure: C, A minor, F, G7—later used in “Those Magic Changes” featured in Grease.
In the second half of the 1960s, he found himself at a party surrounded by stoners, disgusted by the state of rock music at the time and longing for the sounds of 1950s rock and roll, he was inspired to write a production based upon life in the early rock and roll era. His influences included Elvis, Bill Haley, Buddy Holly, Little Richard, and Jerry Lee Lewis.
“You know, man, we had drive-in movies, we had the high school dance, there was a girls’ gang at Taft, these tough chicks and they were called the Pink Ladies,” Jacobs explained to NBC5 Chicago earlier this year over the phone. “That was their gang!”
He began working with his friend, fellow doo-wop music fan Warren Casey. “Grease” was named after the 1950s United States working-class youth subculture known as greasers and set in 1959 at the fictional Rydell High School, based largely on Jacobs’s high school experiences and even used the names of some of Jacobs’s acquaintances.
The characters included the T-Birds tough-guy leader Danny Zuko, torn by his feelings for Sandy Dumbrowski (or Olsson), the wholesome new girl trying to navigate peer pressure and high school social circles; Betty Rizzo, the sharp-tongued leader of the Pink Ladies; Kenickie, Danny’s close friend and owner of a prized (though beat-up) car “Greased Lightnin’.” Finally, there were The T-Birds & Pink Ladies, including Doody, Sonny, Roger, Frenchy, Jan, and Marty.
Jacobs’ and Casey’s “Grease” premiered on February 5, 1971, at Kingston Mines nightclub, running for eight months. The show featured Chicago native and future TV/film star Marilu Henner, then a teenager, as Marty Maraschino (“as in cherry.”)
As Wikipedia sources put it, “Grease” was “a raunchy, raw, aggressive, vulgar show, “mentioning social issues such as teenage pregnancy, peer pressure, and gang violence; its themes include love, friendship, teenage rebellion, and sexual exploration during adolescence.”
The Neon Lights of Broadway
Producers Ken Waissman and Maxine Fox saw the show and made a deal to produce it Off-Broadway. The team headed to New York City to collaborate on the New York production. Subsequent productions toned down the more risqué content, and parts of the music book were replaced. Featuring future stars like Barry Bostwick as the original Danny Zuko and Adrienne Barbeau as Rizzo, Grease’s 3,388-performance run was the longest in Broadway history at the time. It was surpassed by A Chorus Line in 1983.
That said, “Grease” remains Broadway’s 18th longest-running show.
Today
“Grease” lives on today, through adaptations on TV, the two movies, in local high school and grade school productions, and countless community theatres across the world. Even Taft High School, who told NBC5 Chicago, “We were able to kickstart our program into another level, and we are one of the top musical producing high schools in CPS,” said Drama teacher Bryan Wilson. “So I guess that is part of the legacy here, thanks to Jim Jacobs.”
Alison Moran-Powers and Dean’s Team Chicago
