Saturday, January 17, 2015
TELL ME MORE, TELL ME MORE: Not content to let NBC occupy the "Live Musicals" front, Fox has now confirmed that its version of Grease: LIVE! will air on Sunday, January 31, 2016 (that's the Sunday between the AFC/NFC championships and the Super Bowl) and will star Julianne Hough as Sandy and Vanessa Hudgens as Rizzo. Additional casting TBD, but that gives you an idea of the age they'll be looking at for the leads, and I'm sure you'll have suggestions.
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I hope that Matt won't mind if I note his excellent suggestion for Danny on Twitter today, Daniel Radcliffe. I initially thought, "too short," but then I see Hough is only 5'3" and I think of her as taller based on all the ballroom heels.
ReplyDelete(Also, Hudgens as Rizzo is such a delightfully awful idea at first glance that I can only assume I'm being unfair and I'll give her a shot.)
Hudgens' Gigi contract must be pretty short--previews start in March and the show opens in April. Even assuming they're planning on rehearsing and filming in NY, would be basically impossible for her do 8 shows a week of Gigi and rehearse this.
ReplyDeleteI think we can all be thankful, by the way, that no one came up with the terrible idea of using Gigi for a TV broadcast.
ReplyDeleteThat's partially because the rights have been messy--remember that it's never been mounted on stage before.
ReplyDeleteGlancing at the Playbill story of the staging a little earlier, it did look like one of the messy ones, mentioning source material from both the movie and the novel.
ReplyDeleteForgive if I've pointed this out before here, but since i learned this factoid a few months back, I can't help but point it out at any opportune circumstance: Olivia Newton-John's grandfather was Max Born, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1954.
ReplyDeleteI....OK, that is kind of interesting to know.
ReplyDeleteGrease is going to be during Gigi, so I can't figure out how she's doing it. Gigi just started previews at the KenCen, and I'm seeing it in February.
ReplyDeleteJoseph, I think you may be pleasantly surprised by Hudgens as Rizzo.
I've got tickets for February, too. I'm actually looking forward to seeing Hudgens.
ReplyDeleteGrease isn't airing till 2016. It's possible her contract terminates in October or November, permitting her to go directly into full-time rehearsals.
ReplyDeletePart of what clouds the analysis is that Stockard Channing was 33 when she filmed Grease, lending an extra world-weary-too-old-for-this-shit sense to her character. Hudgens will be 27 when this airs.
ReplyDeleteI saw Hudgens in RENT at the Hollywood Bowl a few years ago and, while she wasn't mind-blowing, she certainly was game. I think she'll be a good Rizzo. And I ADORE the Radcliffe idea.
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