Tom Moore - Grease, Tell Me More, Tell Me More: Stories from the Broadway Phenomenon That Started It All

One summer night in the middle of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, the original Broadway Grease company gathered on a Zoom call. Telling stories becomes central to every alumni reunion, and Grease was no exception. We never tire of sharing stories, as the memories are fiercely treasured. Even when stories are repeated over and over, we laugh at all the same things as if for the first time.

One thing that unexpectedly came out of that reunion was the wish to commemorate the show for its fiftieth anniversary on February 14, 2022. We realized one way to do that would be to put our memories into book form.

The genesis of Grease is a quixotic one, and its improbable success is a legendary tale. We wanted to share what it was like to create and be part of this showbiz phenomenon.

Most Broadway shows produce some enduring friendships, but Grease was unique in that for almost everyone involved, it was our first big break at the beginning of our professional careers, and we were all approximately the same age.

The word Rydell High alumni use most often when referring to their fellow Grease actors, musicians, crew, and staff is family. Before these hundreds of artists became one big Broadway family, however, they were each part of a unique Grease company, or familyand that is how we tell our story.

One Broadway show, eight national tours, from February 14, 1972, until it closed on April 13, 1980, after a record-breaking 3,388 performances.

TOM MOORE, ADRIENNE BARBEAU, KEN WAISSMAN

JIM JACOBS (Author/Composer): In 1969 I was having a cast party in my apartment and practically everybody had left, but Warren Casey was still there, along with some deadbeats lying around listening to Led Zeppelin, smoking weed and drunk, of course, and I go to this closet where I had a shopping bag full of my old 45s from the 50s and came out and said, Im putting on Dion and the Belmonts. I go over, sit next to Warren, and say, How come theres never been a Broadway show, man, with rock and roll music? Those exact words.

Warren looked at me like I was nutty and said, Yeah, well, thats a fun idea, but what the hell would it be about? I said, I have no idea. Maybe it should be about the people I went to high school with. And because everything in those days was greasy, because the hair was greasy and the food was greasy, and there were all these guys who had cars and they were always under the hood, man, and theyd come out all greasy... it could be called Grease.

Warren looked at me and said, Yeah, yeah. OK, youre drunk, its three oclock in the morning, lets all go get a tattoo of an executioner with an axe. Im goin home.

Warren was a very close-lipped guy. But I found him the funniest person I had ever known. A latter-day Oscar Wilde of the welfare state. An American Joe Orton. We could have each other in hysterics for hours on end. There were never two more different kind of guys, but we made a great team.

I was part of Chicagos community theater scene while working a day job in advertising. Warren, at that time, was working for Mary Cell Corsetrya womens underwear store. When people asked Warren, What do you do? hed say, Oh, Im in bras and panties....

Jim Jacobs at Foster Beach on Lake Michigan.

A few weeks after that party where I replaced Led Zeppelin with 50s rock n roll, Warren calls me up and says, I started working on a scene and a song for that show you were talking about the other night. I said, What show? I didnt have a clue what he was talking about. You remember... Grease. You said we would call it Grease. I said, Youre writing a scene? He said, Yeah, its a girls pajama party. And Im writin it now. Its called Freddy, My Love. I knew right away he was spoofing Eddie My Love by the Teen Queens. So that was it. I went down to my office and instead of writing direct mail and ads and shit for Advertising Age, I just started writing names of characters and making up songs. I started thinking of the drive-in movie, hamburger joints, a rumble, pajama parties, tattoos... scenes like that.

Around the same time, this actress-teacher friend of mine calls me up one day and says, Do you think you could teach my drama class for me? I said, I dont know anything about teaching. She said, Well, just fake it for one week. Youll think of something. Oh, and you get thirty dollars!

So I came up with auditioning for a play. I brought in the pajama party scene and picked out five girls and said, OK, youll play Marty, youre gonna be Jan, etc. They start reading the thingit was the first time I had ever heard it readand all the people in the class start laughing their asses off. I mean, really howling at the lines; I got goose bumps. Holy shit, what the fuck! I called up Warren and said, Warren, we have a play! We really have a fuckin play!