"Grease the Musical" - by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey - North Shore Music Theatre (Beverly, MA.) - REVIEW
(Cover Photo: Hank Santos as “Kenickie” with Jeremiah Garcia as “Roger,” Nick Cortazzo as “Danny” and Jayson Brown as “Doody” in a "systematic-hydromatic" moment from the musical "GREASE" by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey now playing at Bill Hanney's North Shore Music Theatre in Beverly, MA. through August 24, 2025. Photo Credit: Paul Lyden)
By Kevin T. Baldwin
METRMAG Reviewer
# 774-242-6724
"Go grease lightning you're burning up the quarter mile."
- ("Kenickie") / Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey
North Shore Music Theatre
Presents
"GREASE THE MUSICAL"
Book, Music and Lyrics by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey
Directed and Choreographed by Kevin P. Hill
Music Director Milton Granger
Cast Includes: Caroline Siegrist* as “Sandy Dumbrowski,” Nick Cortazzo* as “Danny Zuko,” Andrew Tufano* as “Sonny Latierri,” Jeremiah Garcia as “Roger,” Jayson Brown as “Doody,” Hank Santos* as “Kenickie,” Sunayna Smith* as “Jan,” Bailey Reese Greemon* as “Betty Rizzo,” Brittany Zeinstra* as “Marty,” Lily Kaufmann* as “Frenchy,” Ryan Behan as “Eugene Florczyk,” Alaina Mills* as “Patty Simcox,” Kathy St. George* as “Miss Lynch,” Ashton Lambert* as “Johnny Casino,” Chris Stevens* as “Vince Fontaine,” Rosie Granito as “Cha-Cha DiGregorio,” Avionce Hoyles* as “Teen Angel.” Ensemble - Tre’ Booker, Ellie Chancellor, Grace Conrad, Chase Graham, Mitchell Lewis, Kassi McMillan*, Maclain Rhine*, Elana Valastro
UNDERSTUDIES & STUDY COVERS
Understudies and Study Covers are never substituted for listed performers unless a specific announcement is made at the time of the performance.
Understudy For: Sandy Dumbrowski - Kassi Mcmillan*; Danny Zuko - Ashton Lambert*; Kenickie - Andrew Tufano*; Roger - Chris Stevens*; Miss Lynch - Alaina Mills*; Johnny Casino - Maclain Rhine*; Study Cover For: Sonny Latierri - Tre’ Booker; Doody & Teen Angel - Mitchell Lewis; Jan & Betty Rizzo - Rosie Granito; Marty - Grace Conrad; Frenchy & Patty Simcox - Ellie Chancellor; Eugene Florczyk – Jayson Brown; Vince Fontaine - Chase Graham; Cha-Cha Digregorio - Elana Valastro.
Additional Creative Team:
Production Stage Manager - Brian M. Robillard*;Assistant Stage Managers - Dakotah Wiley Horan*, Maria Papadopoulos*;Dance Captain, Associate Director and Choreographer - Alaina Mills*;Rehearsal Pianist and Assistant Music Director - Robert L. Rucinski; Scenic & Lighting Design - Jack Mehler;Costume Coordinator - Rebecca Glick;Sound Design – Alex Berg;Wig & Hair Design - Rachel Padula-Shuflet;Chief Operating Officer - Karen Nascembeni;Associate Producer and Casting Director - Matthew Chappell;Company Manager and Casting Associate - Amanda Ostrow-Mason.
* Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.
Performances:
August 12, 2025 through August 24, 2025
(Contact Box Office for Exact Times)
TICKETS:
For tickets and information visit www.nsmt.org, call # 978-232-7200, or visit the North Shore Music Theatre box office in person at 54 Dunham Road, Beverly, MA. 01915
BUY TICKETS
COVID 19 PROTOCOLS
Contact Venue for Most Updated COVID-19 Safety Protocols and Information.
"GREASE" is the word at Bill Hanney's North Shore Music Theatre (NSMT) and it is a “summer lovin’” musical you won’t want to miss.
Wait - did that opening read "familiar" to some of you?
Well, for regular readers of METRMag this may read like a case of “Deja Review” as this musical was literally just reviewed over this past weekend.
However, that staging was by Theatre at the Mount in Gardner and this review is, in fact, for another remarkable local staging of "GREASE" by NSMT in Beverly which is a production we can also safely and highly recommend.
Before the show began, Bill Hanney himself came out and admitted he had once staged the show many years before and he, in his words, "did everything wrong" and hoped this latest production more than made up for it.
Mission: ACCOMPLISHED.
Featuring an ensemble of superb vocalists, the NSMT production maintains a faultless balance between the stage and movie versions of "GREASE" - adding in numbers specifically from the film while preserving most (if not all) of the songs from the original stage musical.
The 1971 musical, which is still among Broadway's longest-running shows, features music, lyrics, and a book by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey.
The musical follows 1950s working-class teens known as “Greasers” as they navigate their lives full of complications that includes sex, peer pressure, sex, politics, love…and did I say sex?
As mentioned, the general public (or at least those “of a certain age”) will most likely fondly recall the 1978 film "GREASE," which starred John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, and which was a huge departure from the original musical structure.
Before we get into all that, here’s a brief history of this show’s more than half-century evolution.
(Photo: Lily Kaufmann as “Frenchy,” Caroline Siegrist as “Sandy,” Sunayna Smith as “Jan,” Brittany Zeinstra as “Marty” and Bailey Reese Greemon as “Betty Rizzo” in a scene from the musical "GREASE" by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey now playing at Bill Hanney's North Shore Music Theatre in Beverly, MA. through August 24, 2025. Photo Credit: Paul Lyden)
The show's 1971 debut Chicago production was based on Jim Jacobs’ own experience attending William Taft High School in Chicago. Jacobs collaborated with Warren Casey writing the music and lyrics for "GREASE."
This was not the more “dumbed-down” or antiseptic "GREASE" many have since come to know.
This initial production was vulgar, loaded with crass, insulting and sophomoric so-called “adult humor,” laden with harsh profanity and shock value that was intentional.
The Chicago version of "GREASE" also has a markedly dissimilar songbook, which was abbreviated and included references to actual Chicago landmarks.
For those familiar with the original cast recording, outside of a few “staple songs” to listen to it is a hugely unpleasant task.
Not so with later variants of the musical, thankfully.
The 1971 run of "GREASE" lasted for eight months and received poor reviews; but in that “original original cast” was a very young actress named Marilu Henner (as “Marty”) who went on to become a huge star thanks to the show “Taxi.”
Producers Ken Waissman and Maxine Fox saw the show and in 1972 brought a revamped version to Off-Broadway.
This is the structured version that is…again thankfully…most performed today.
The production moved to Broadway where it ran until 1980, two years after the film version of "GREASE" was released and became a megahit.
By the time the stage musical version of "GREASE" closed, it had run 3,388 performances (later surpassed by “A Chorus Line” in 1983.)
The original Broadway cast included Barry Bostwick as “Danny” and Adrienne Barbeau “as Rizzo” and received multiple Tony Award nominations in 1972.
Other celebrities on an "upwardly mobile star power trajectory" included Jeff Conaway, Peter Gallagher, Richard Gere, Ilene Graff, Randee Heller, Patrick Swayze, John Travolta, Treat Williams and more.
The show has since been revived multiple times while also maintaining significant global popularity surpassed by few other musicals.
There was even an ambitious 2016 broadcast "GREASE: Live!" starring Julianne Hough, Aaron Tveit, Vanessa Hudgens and Jordan Fisher.
Even with its archaic sexual ethics in a prevailing climate of so-called “wokeness” the musical "GREASE" shows no signs of going away any time soon.
What began as an homage to what American culture was actually like in the fifties ultimately became a completely unrealistic, fantasized version of what people HOPED the fifties were like.
(Photo: Hank Santos as “Kenickie” with Jeremiah Garcia as “Roger,” Nick Cortazzo as “Danny” and Jayson Brown as “Doody” in a "systematic-hydromatic" moment from the musical "GREASE" by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey now playing at Bill Hanney's North Shore Music Theatre in Beverly, MA. through August 24, 2025. Photo Credit: Paul Lyden)
For the sake of time, I’ll only mention how even though the motion picture adaptation of "GREASE" was such a blockbuster success, it spawned an embarrassingly abysmal sequel, “GREASE 2” in 1982...and that’s about as much notoriety as that sequel deserves.
Changes made to the first film included the addition of the title song "GREASE" (written by Barry Gibb and performed by singer Frankie Valli) and songs written specifically to accommodate Olivia Newton-John, including her solo “Hopelessly Devoted to You” and “You’re the One That I Want” sung with Travolta, both of which became mammoth hits (and loathed by many a Top-40 radio station disc jockey back in the day).
Many companies use the libretto that most closely resembles the 1978 motion picture, including this latest one executed by North Shore Music Theatre.
Specific to the NSMT production, movie songs incorporated into the show are “Grease is the Word,” “Hopelessly Devoted to You,” “Sandy” and “You’re the One That I Want” replacing songs “Alma Mater,” “Raining on Prom Night,” “Alone At The Drive In” and “All Choked Up.”
The story, set in 1959, takes place at the fictional “Rydell High School” located in Northwest Chicago.
(Note: The school’s name is an homage to the late 50s singer Bobby Rydell.)
The “in-the-round” staging by NSMT space by director and choreographer Kevin P. Hill is simply ingenious.
The stage is sparse of set but is instead surrounded by images of jukebox selections and multiple 45-RPM records of hit singles of the era, all changing illumination as the evening proceeds.
Later, projections are used exceptionally well to highlight various moments in the show. Costuming impressions throughout the entire show take us back to a time that never truly existed (as previously stated).
(Photo: Bailey Reese Greemon as “Betty Rizzo,” Lily Kaufmann as “Frenchy,” Sunayna Smith as “Jan” perform back-up for Brittany Zeinstra as “Marty” singing about her love “Freddy” in a moment from the musical "GREASE" by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey now playing at Bill Hanney's North Shore Music Theatre in Beverly, MA. through August 24, 2025. Photo Credit: Paul Lyden)
As the musical begins, we are at Rydell High at the start of that senior year of 1958-59 through the iconic song “Grease is the Word” where we are introduced to the boys of the "T-Birds" and their female counterparts the "Pink Ladies."
The cast executes well the adroit group number choreography by Hill.
Under the guidance of conductor and music director Milton Granger the NSMT band is top-notch from beginning to end.
Pink Lady Frenchie (Lily Kaufmann), introduces her new neighbor Sandy (Caroline Siegrist) to the other Pink Ladies.
Siegrist is absolutely delightful as Sandy, who is a new transfer student (not from Australia, so forget any alignment or similarities to ONJ).
Sandy meets Marty (Brittany Zeinstra), Jan (Sunayna Smith) and the Pink Ladies’ leader Rizzo (Bailey Reese Greemon) as well as Patty Simcox (Alaina Mills) an over achieving classmate who later causes trouble for everyone.
Each of the Pink Ladies are given moments to shine in the score, and all deliver the goods.
First Zeinstra as Marty sings the wistful “Freddy, My Love,” then Smith as Jan has the humorous duet “Mooning” sung with T-Bird Roger, played by incredible vocalist Jeremiah Garcia.
Finally, Greemon as Rizzo sings two notable numbers: “Look At Me, I’m Sandra Dee” poking fun at newcomer Sandy, and then later confronts Sandy who she feels is judging her with “There Are Worse Things I Could Do,” a number closely identified with Stockard Channing from the motion picture.
Greemon is completely in sync with the character of Rizzo and exceptionally delivers on these two numbers.
Sandy tells the Pink Ladies of how she had a brief love affair over the summer with Danny (Nick Cortazzo) who she is unaware is one of the “T-Birds.”
Meanwhile, Danny tells his fellow T-Birds Roger, Kenickie (Hank Santos) Doody (Jayson Brown) and Sonny (Andrew Tufano) his version of the events.
The above culminates in one of the most famous numbers from the show, "Summer Nights.”
It probably shouldn’t need to be pointed out and yet it does – this "GREASE" is not a “sing-a-long” event.
So, sit back, enjoy the show, try not to annoy your neighbors with your karaoke skills and just let the on-stage NSMT professionals handle the singing.
(Photo: The CAST of the musical "GREASE" by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey now playing at Bill Hanney's North Shore Music Theatre in Beverly, MA. through August 24, 2025. Photo Credit: Paul Lyden)
Sandy soon learns that Danny also attends Rydell High and while their reunion proves awkward and tense at first, their love is apparent and soon prevails.
Similar to the Pink Ladies, members of the T-Birds are also given musical moments to shine beginning with Brown as Doody who does an extraordinary job with “These Magic Changes” and then more high stepping fun with another show favorite, the iconic “Greased Lightning” led by Santos as Kenickie.
Brown and Garcia later duet on “Rock ‘N’ Roll Party Queen” but that is played more for underscoring and laughs than anything else, which is a shame since their harmonies blend so well.
The car used for the NSMT show is no mere minor mechanical marvel - and high praise indeed for Santos and Cortazzo for literally “driving” it on and off the stage, maneuvering with minimal lighting.
While the iconic onscreen chemistry of ONJ and Travolta as “Sandy and Danny” may never soon be forgotten, Siegrist is absolutely delightful rendering Sandy’s “Hopelessly Devoted to You” while Cortazzo does justice to Danny’s lovelorn song “Sandy” and the two do have obvious chemistry on stage together.
There are numerous plot elements from the film which you won’t find in the stage version…again, thankfully…such as a culminating drag race.
There have also been some adjustments made to the relationships between some of the characters that, with no added spoilers, may take some off guard.
In addition, for anyone familiar with the movie, if you found Sandy’s “transformation” by the end of the story problematic, this version does nothing to change your mind.
(Photo: Caroline Siegrist as “Sandy” with Nick Cortazzo as “Danny” share a pivotal moment together in the musical "GREASE" by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey now playing at Bill Hanney's North Shore Music Theatre in Beverly, MA. through August 24, 2025. Photo Credit: Paul Lyden)
The finale of the movie is the Act One closer of the stage musical, "We Go Together" and the show’s Act Two finale is the added “You’re the One That I Want” and BOTH songs will have fans in the audience singing along (yeah, karaoke haters, just try and stop ‘em).
While “Summer Nights,” “Greased Lightning” or even the show’s opener may seem it, “We Go Together” turns out to be the choreography high point of the NSMT show.
Other great ensemble dance numbers take place at the school dance in Act Two with "Shakin' At the High School Hop" and “Born to Hand Jive.”
In addition to the hilarious Kathy St. George as school principal Miss Lynch, other adults in the NSMT cast include Ashton Lambert as school dance host “Johnny Casino,” Chris Stevens as horny local famed disk jockey “Vince Fontaine” and Avionce Hoyles as the “Teen Angel” who absolutely raises the salon roof with the bizarre Frenchy fantasy sequence song, “Beauty School Dropout.”
"GREASE" continues at Bill Hanney's North Shore Music Theatre in Beverly until August 24th, 2025 and is a great way to finish a fun summer run of shows with more fun shows to look forward to in the fall.
Coming up next, NSMT jumps ahead a few decades with Jonathan Larson’s groundbreaking musical “RENT” beginning September 16th and running until September 28th.
For tickets and information visit www.nsmt.org, call # 978-232-7200, or visit the North Shore Music Theatre box office in person at 54 Dunham Road, Beverly, MA. 01915
BUY TICKETS
Approximately two hours, 20 minutes with one intermission.
Kevin T. Baldwin is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA)
@MetrmagReviews
@Theatre_Critics
ABOUT THE SHOW
"GREASE" is the word!
Dust off your leather jackets, pull out your poodle skirts, and step back in time to the 1950s to hand-jive the night away with "GREASE!"
In this all-new production, relive the timeless story of bad boy Danny and new girl Sandy as they fall in love in the original high school musical.
Navigating love and friendship amidst the backdrop of Rydell High, this musical adaptation features the irresistible songs, “You’re The One That I Want,” “Hopelessly Devoted To You,” “There Are Worse Things I Could Do” and many more from the hit movie and Broadway musical!
"GREASE" is the high-energy, electrifyin' show that will make you want to get up and shout, "A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop! A-wop-bam-boom!"
Approximately 2h 20m (includes intermission)
CONTENT ADVISORY: Contains adult themes including sexual references and innuendo, mild language, and several instances of drinking and smoking. Recommended for teen and adults. We do encourage you to use your judgment based on your own research of the show, your own sensibilities, and a child's age and maturity level.
No children under the age of 4 will be permitted in the theatre including babes in arms.
ABOUT BILL HANNEY'S NORTH SHORE MUSIC THEATRE
Since opening in 1955, NORTH SHORE MUSIC THEATRE (NSMT) has become one of the most attended theatres in New England, with approximately 250,000 patrons annually. With a national and regional reputation for artistic achievement, NSMT has received numerous industry awards including Elliot Norton Awards, IRNE Awards, the Rosetta Le Noire Award from Actors' Equity, and the Moss Hart Award. NSMT produced the World Premiere of "Memphis" in 2003, the show went on to win four 2010 Tony Awards including Best Musical. Under the new ownership of Bill Hanney since 2010, NSMT continues to annually produce a musical subscription series and an annual production of "A Christmas Carol" along with celebrity concerts, children's programming and year-round education classes for children and adults.
