Kids prepare to perform 'Grease'

Green River will soon be hearing "Grease" and many other favorite songs when Green River High School performs the high-school version of the Broadway musical stage hit, "Grease." Performances of the musical will be April 7-9, at GRHS.

Before the curtains rise on opening night though, there is much work to be done, sets to be built, and songs and dances to be practiced. All work and preparations done by the students is for the audience in Green River to enjoy the show.

"It's a student-driven production, so we put as much responsibility on them as we possibly can," GRHS theater teacher Terrin Musbach said.

The students involved in the musical are responsible for and carry out the entire show. Students are in charge of not only acting and singing, but the backstage work, the set, the costumes, the makeup, the publicity, the lighting and the sound. Every aspect of the show is student generated and student created, Musback said.

"It's essential to the production, it can't happen without them on any level," she said. "Nothing we do here can happen without the students and how they work together."

The students have been working and rehearsing for the musical since Jan. 8, for two hours every day after school, and will continue up through show time in April. All together, it will be 12 weeks of rehearsal time for 52 GRHS students and two adults.

Musbach said most of the students are on stage at some point during the musical. Some of the students won't appear on stage, and will be the ones running the show from behind the scenes, moving the set, running the lights and more.

In all areas of the production, the students are lead by student leaders. Suzanne Malicoat, who directs the student shop, was working on building caster plates for the set on Monday. Others in the shop were building stud walls for the permanent walls in the set. The toughest part of building the set is, "getting all of the measurements right and making sure everything is absolutely perfect," Preston Bartlett said.

"We're not even close to done with the set yet," he said. "It's hard because some boys are in scenes and have to switch from the set to be on stage. It's a difficult process."

Those on stage during Monday's rehearsal were practicing the song "Grease," and the dance moves to go along with it.

Musbach said the reason she and the other directors for the show decided to pick "Grease" for the spring musical is more than just the pop-culture popularity aspect, but also because the story of "Grease" is a relatable one for high-school age students.

"The story is about social outcasts. It's about everything teenagers go through," she said. "Which I totally love because these kids so relate to the show."

As the lyrics in the song "Grease" state, "We start believing now that we can be who we are."

"Because it's the best show for this particular set of kids for a billion different reasons, it's the best show for the kids this year," she said.