Acquiring legal rights part of demanding Grease production process

It only takes a couple hours to watch a play, but the work that goes into the preparation and production can take much longer. The drama department puts on three major productions a year: a musical in the fall, a spring play and the Roadshow. Drama adviser Scott Mead is involved throughout the planning process and production.

The first step, according to Mead, is brainstorming ideas for plays that would be fun and interesting for both the audience and performers. This year, the brainstorming led to Grease, a musical described in the CHS Performing Arts Department press release as “an homage to the idealism of the fifties and a satire of high schoolers’ age old desire to be provocative and rebellious.”

Grease was chosen in part because of its name-recognition, but also because, according to Mead, “It’s a fun show, it’s got characters that people can relate to, storylines people can relate to.”

The next step is getting the rights.

“There’s usually an application process that goes along with that,” Mead said, “and there’s obviously fees… and you’ve got to buy the scripts and for the musical, you also have to buy the music to go along with it.”

The process of obtaining the rights to produce a show usually takes anywhere from a week to a month, but due to complications, Grease took “a lot longer.” Mead did not elaborate on the nature of the complications.

“It just depends on the people that own the rights, what they decide,” Mead said.

After the legal considerations are taken care of, the research process begins. Mead likes to do most of the research over the summer in order to be able to go into the school year prepared.

“[We] start reading the scripts, you know, several times, getting ideas, coming up with design ideas for the production, researching other productions to get ideas on how best to interpret the show,” Mead said.

Mead is assisted in this process by two resident technical artists, Tom Bertino and Ernie Gubbels. Bertino helps develop scenery and Gubbels helps with lighting and sound.

“We read the script and we have meetings over the summer, and brainstorm ideas, and then help with the design process,” Mead said.

Depending on the demands of the production, specialists may be necessary to assist with the process.

“Obviously if it’s a musical we’re working with the music director, and the choreographer,” Mead said. “Typically, not always, we do costume rental, and so we‘re coordinating with the costume people, the rental companies.”

The next step is to cast the show. Auditions for Grease were broken down into three parts: acting, singing and dancing.

“It is a musical, so people act, sing and dance,” Mead said. “We want students to be able to do all three of those, and with a name recognition show that people are going to know, we want to make sure that we’ve got the students that can do those roles and do them well.”

One of the challenges particular to Grease is that most people are familiar with the film version, but the staged version is different.

“I don’t want people coming in thinking they’re going to see the movie, because they’re not going to see the movie, they’re going to see our interpretation of the staged version of the show,” Mead said. “There’s a lot of similarities, there’s also a lot of differences, some different songs. We were able to purchase and get the rights to do some of the movie songs, so we’ll have some of the movie songs in the show, so that will be fun and exciting for people that want to come and see and hear the songs being sung.”

Production dates are Friday, Nov. 3, 2017 at 7 p.m. and Saturday, Nov. 4, 2017 at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. in the Central High School Auditorium. Tickets are $10 for adults and $8 for students with their school ID.