Last night Fox entered the live musical space with Grease Live and pulled off an impressive presentation.
If you were on Twitter last night it was impossible to avoid any talk about the live Grease, and for good reason: It was great. Julianne Hough and Aaron Tveit portrayed Sandy and Danny, while Vanessa Hudgens (Rizzo), Keke Palmer (Marty), Kether Donohue (Jan), Carlos PenaVega (Kenickie), and Carly Rae Jepsen (Frenchy) rounded out the cast.
Fox up’d the live musical game last night and gave NBC a serious run for their money. While NBC’s live adaptations of The Sound of Music, Peter Pan, and The Wiz have been stuck inside cramped New York sound stages, Fox’s Grease played out across multiple spacious sets, including one outdoors on the Paramount lot in Los Angeles.
What’s more, Grease Live frequently broke the fourth wall and put you right in the center of the action. The gym sequences were some of the most impressive of the night — scenes were taking place all around the set, one right after the other. All the extra room, coupled with putting the camera in the center of the action, benefited the musical greatly — it made viewers feel like they were a part of the show rather than watching from the mezzanine.
There’s no doubt that this was an impressive directorial achievement, and Fox has set the bar very high for future musicals. It makes you wonder what kind of improvements NBC will be making to their live musical presentations beginning later this year with Hairspray.
Watch each of Grease Live’s musical performances, in order, below:
Special credit is due to Vanessa Hudgens, who revealed hours before the show that her father had passed away the night before:
I am so sad to say that last night my daddy, Greg passed away from stage 4 cancer. Thank you to everyone who kept him in your prayers.
— Vanessa Hudgens (@VanessaHudgens) January 31, 2016
Tonight, I do the show in his honor.
— Vanessa Hudgens (@VanessaHudgens) January 31, 2016