Pop-Culturalist.com

Grease: Live was definitely a Fox hit this past weekend. Although there were a couple minor issues (sometimes the music overpowered the vocals making it hard to hear the singing; the new song was a bit too pop of a song to fit with the rest of the show), Grease pretty much blew NBC’s live musicals (Sound of Music, Peter Pan, and The Wiz) out of the water. Here are a couple reasons that Grease was successful:

The Live Audience
Honestly, I think this made the live performance one hundred times better. Not only are the actors able to feed off the audience’s energy as they would in a live stage show, but the audience at home watching can also feed off that energy. Hearing the audience cheer, clap, and react to musical numbers made me more enthusiastic. The talking scenes (especially ones that had jokes) still was lacking the live audience reaction so, Fox, next time, make sure viewers can hear audience laughter for jokes, too! The silence after a joke made the joke seem like it fell flat, even if it didn’t.

The Set
Using both indoor and outdoor space was so inventive. It also kept the viewer from getting bored. Although it was still obviously the set was, well, a set, the camera sweeping from set to set created a much more television or film feel to the production. Having to change the location of some of the numbers due to weather was hard, I’m sure, but it was handled so well on the production team’s part.

Marty’s Costume Change
Bravo William Ivey Long! He did this with the magical dress/costume change in Cinderella:

Then, he made Marty’s costume change during “Freddy my Love” eye-popping in a similar fashion. Such talent (both WIL and Keke Palmer as Marty)!

Performances
While I thought almost all of the performances were overall quite good, there were a couple standout ones: Hello, Jordan Fisher (Doody)! You will be a star with that smooth as butter voice and guitar playing…not to mention those glasses look adorable on you.

 
Blanche. No need to explain why–just look at this:

Vanessa Hudgens. Hers was truly “the show must go on” performance once everyone heard about the passing of her father the night before the show. Most people would have not been able to perform, but she held it together–and embodied Rizzo. Brava!

“You’re the One That I Want”. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the most popular song from Grease–the movie AND the stage version. Grease: Live stuck pretty closely to how it played out in the movie, and it was wonderful! It was fun, flirty, and looked good. I dare you not to sing along…

The Production Team
A good number of the production team come from the world of theater. Thomas Kail, Grease’s director, recently directed a little show on Broadway called Hamilton; David Korins the production designer, also worked on Hamilton (that explains why Lin-Manuel Miranda was live tweeting the whole show…and was amazing at it). The new song that Carly Rae Jepsen (Frenchie) performed was written by Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey–both of whom wrote Next to Normal. Next to Normal was a Tony and Pulitizer-prize winner, and Aaron Tveit (Danny in Grease: Live) starred in it, too! Finally, William Ivey Long was the costume designer (his work ranges from Cinderella to Grey Gardens to Nine to Hairspray). So, basically, Broadway is going to take over the world.

Now that Grease was such a hit for Fox, we are eager to see what they have in store next!