Grease…is the Word at Georgetown College, Where Enduring Musical Explores ‘Fitting In’
Is there a deeper meaning to the fast cars and first dates of the musical Grease? Georgetown College Professor George McGee seems to think so. “The obvious message is trying to answer the question of ‘how do I fit in’?” he says.
The question now is: How do all the patrons who want to see this popular stage production fit in to Georgetown College’s Ruth Pearce Wilson Lab Theatre? The choice of Grease was such a hit that the scheduled two weekends in November were sold out in no time. So, Director McGee has revved up added shows for the evenings of Nov. 29 and 30.
Famous for the film adaptation in the 1970s, Grease centers on the students of a Fifties-era high school realizing the possibilities of first love symbolized by students Sandy (played by Lexington sophomore Jessie Pennington, a theatre major) and Danny (played by Lexington freshman Hagan Hill), who overcome the awkwardness of high school peer pressure to be together in the end.
On a rehearsal night, McGee tries to corral the more than 30 cast members onto the stage to run through the big second-act dance number “High School Hop.” This is the cast’s second run-through; McGee wasn’t satisfied with the amount of energy in the first. “Try to think about the positive relationships you’ve had,” McGee says. A few cast members bend to tie their shoes, and then the rehearsal band strikes up the song and the cast begins a kinetic, swing-inspired dance routine.
The second run-through is a success. As the number ends, McGee shouts “Yay high school!” – and the cast cheers. With so many people crowding the tiny lab theatre stage, a youthful exuberance overflows between numbers as cast members razz each other and banter back and forth much like the teenage characters they’re playing.
“It’s great,” says Hagan Hill, who plays male lead Danny. “I can be cocky and act like an adolescent, immature teenager.” Junior Lauren Mink, a psychology major from Winchester, who plays Rizzo, female lead Sandy’s main antagonist, agrees. “It’s fun being able to do [a musical] at Georgetown because you get to see these people all the time every day,” she says.
The production is one of the largest put on at the college in recent years, which suits Allison Damron, a sophomore English major from Ashland, just fine. “It’s a lot of fun being with all the people,” she says. The cast often spends time together outside of rehearsal, including late night trips to Steak and Shake. It’s not all fun and games, though. “I’m not a natural dancer in the least,” Damron says, “so I practice like crazy in my dorm room all the time.” The small size of the theatre has presented its own challenges. “We thought about a very minimal set,” says Georgetown College Professor Dathan A. Powell, the show’s technical director, “but there were too many things people were used to seeing because of the movie.” Powell and McGee have been in constant discussion to adapt staging demands to the smaller space. “The high school became the backdrop for me, the motif,” Powell says, a basic unit set to which other elements, such as the soda fountain or Kenicke’s car, can be added as needed. McGee and Powell made this choice because they found high school to be at the metaphorical center of the musical. “The scenes may change, but it’s always there,” Powell says Grease is the newest in a line of increasingly-ambitious musicals produced by the Georgetown College Department of Theatre & Performance Studies. There have been challenges for the production, like fitting a Broadway musical into a black box theatre that seats just under 100 people. But there have been successes as well. “I’ve discovered some talent that I didn’t know we had,” says McGee. “It’s been a real pleasant surprise to see just how talented our students are,” he says.
“In several ways, I like the play better than the film,” says McGee. “The play is certainly much edgier. We’re not going to gloss over the edginess.” Part of the play’s edginess comes from the pain of growing up, he says. “There’s this bizarre balancing act between this youthful passion and being ‘cool’ in an adult way.”
For Jessie Pennington, who plays female lead Sandy, finding that harder edge in her character has been somewhat of a challenge. “You have to really work hard so that they’re not boring,” she says. Sandy might be a “goody twos-shoes,” but Pennington has worked hard to “make her as entertaining as everybody else.”
While Sandy and Danny are the stars of the show, McGee thinks misfit characters Kenicke and Rizzo, who share an off-again-on-again relationship, also have a very important part in the plot as well. “You can’t but help feel their pain,” McGee says.
Powell agrees. “We probably all knew someone like them in high school,” he says. “They were never going to get any better than that, where they peak basically at 17.” Mink says her character Rizzo “wants to be accepted by everybody, but she has this hard outer shell that’s hard to break, because she’s very vulnerable underneath.” Sophomore Jared C. Cain, a church music major from Charleston, W.V., who plays Kenicke, thinks Kenicke and Rizzo show the darker side of young love. “They have a really weird relationship,” he says. “I guess it’s pretty typical for high school.”
But McGee isn’t letting the play’s serious side get in the way of the fun. “Grease has a very positive message,” he says. “It’s a very positive play that says that somehow it’s going to be all right, as horrible as growing up can be.” McGee hopes audiences will see the intense possibility that comes along with being a student, the feeling that life is open and can go anywhere.
The first two weekends (Nov. 10-12 and 17-19) of Grease are sold out, but tickets remain for the added dates of Nov. 29 and 30. All shows are at 8 p.m. and performances last approximately two hours. Tickets are $3 for students and $8 for all others and can be purchased at the door or by calling (502) 863-8104.