the word was grease

GREASE
THEATER 11
-spring 1986
Shortly after BIRDIE auditions, the high school held auditions for GREASE. Even though the rehearsal periods would be overlapping, i knew it was theoretically possible for me to do both. This was what i had dropped out of the bands for, so i would try. And GREASE...well, it was hip, it was fun, it was everything BIRDIE wasn't. I didn't really think about my chances of getting a good part. The director, Mr. Mankowski, had directed my sister a few years earlier. I set my sights on the lead, Danny. The assistant director was Diane Wargo, a grad student from Villanova. She was, well, just incredible. Blonde, bright-eyed, fun, with a figure that short-circuited our poor teenage brains. She said i'd make a great Kenickie, and any attention from her felt like a gift from heaven. At the callbacks, i noticed that not many guys were singing Danny's falsetto. Mr. Mankowski kept asking us to try, but nobody i heard was able to do it with any amount of strength. Falsetto had always come easier to me than chest singing; i didn't even know this was peculiar. Auditions over, i knew i had a shot. And i wanted it, partly because of the bad taste in my mouth from the BIRDIE auditions. I didn't want Kenickie, either. A day or two later, the cast list went up. And next to my name, "Danny". There was none of the jubilant jumping a la the JOSEPH casting. I was still sweet and sincere, but there was an almost predatory layer added. And thus began the most excitingly intense time i'd ever known. I stayed after school for GREASE rehearsal, then ran home for a meal, to get to BIRDIE rehearsal by seven. Almost anything after JOSEPH would have been a letdown, but my rehearsal marathons somehow dodged that fate. Diane danced with me while choreographing, and i got to, you know, hold her and stuff. Mr. Mankowski was great. "Dan the man", we called him. He gave me his own boots for my costume. Cast chemistry was an interesting thing. Never any dominant disharmony, but it wasn't a love-in, either. Our lack of total chemistry was negated by the excitement. Playing Sandy was a junior named Pam. She was the first girl i ever kissed onstage. We got along, but there weren't any sparks. We were tentative about the kissing, so Mr. Man cleared the auditorium to work with us, and we got better. She was a good Sandy. Most days i had one of my parent's cars, to make my crazy schedule easier. There was a group of four or five actors, mostly juniors, who always pleaded with me to pick them up on the way to school. Very often, i did. One of them was a sweet, sweet girl who adored me and was good friends with Pam, which helped warm Pam up to me. There were three others who managed the BIRDIE/GREASE bifecta: Wendy Parker, Courtney Lear, and Jim McLaine. Wendy was Rizzo, and she was pretty damn great, which was funny, because she was the mayor's wife in BIRDIE, a teeny part. Courtney was a Pink Lady, and also had practically no part in BIRDIE. But there was an unspoken connection between the four of us as we did BIRDIE, a sort of "just wait-til-GREASE" energy. Jim played Doody. Our two-show connection was one of the reasons i'd been so happy to expand his singing part in BIRDIE. The line that he and i inexplicably got the biggest kick out of was "Hey Doody, where'd you get the guitar?". It just made us laugh. The junior who had played the romantic lead in ARSENIC played Jan, and very well. Bill Mulvey played the D.J. Kevin Feinberg and Elaine Kalpin played the "good" students, and i loved them. Roger and Sonny were two juniors who were just fun and great. And in the role of Kenickie, my (ahem) bosom chum…Lou Markert! I didn't find out until years later that his dislike of me cemented with the GREASE casting, because he had been the lead the previous year. During rehearsals, Mr. Man was second-guessing his decision to double-cast the actor playing the teen angel, so i asked Jim Shannon to come in. It clicked, and another Youth Clubber was onboard. Junior Liz Abbott played the "bad" girl i dance with, and there were genuine sparks between us. But she was seeing someone, even though i thought he was a bit of a tool, and she didn't seem happy. Sigh. But it was so cool being Danny. Singing a Travolta-esque "Summer Lovin'", sliding across the floor on my knees singing "A-wop-bob-a-lu-bop, a-whop-bam-boom", the T-Birds and i backing up Kenickie on "Greased Lightning"…there was only one weekend separating the performances of GREASE and BIRDIE, and the Danny/Birdie duality was an interesting dynamic. Jim M. had found an incredible leather jacket which i wore in both shows. When the show ended, i might have been able to buy it from the owner, but again i didn't want to live in the past. I wore tight black pants, and the first time Jim M. saw them, he said, "You're not going to wear those, are you?" But the directors liked them. After the show, my brothers joked about the "potato" in my pants, my parents gave me a "Big Bird" doll, and my sister insisted that i had been packing. The auditorium was huge, and the crowds loved us. When i saw the program, i thought my photo was a little ugly. At that point, i believed that i would grow into my looks around age thirty-two. Not that i was lacking in confidence, but i had long wanted to scream to all the girls who were ignoring me, "If you'd just get beyond the facade, and know the real me!" The sweetest moment of all may have come during rehearsals. One day, the leads had to go to the band room to record some vocals. It was the first time we met the pit band, whom i had spent so many years with, most notably Fred Rosen, the sax player who had been my solo counterpart in numerous jazz bands. We had lived two houses apart since 5th grade. After we finished recording, Fred said that he had never been able to understand why i had left. He smiled, and said that he now understood.