India Sweeting, who plays Betty Rizzo and Dominic Rollins, who plays Kenickie during one of their final dress rehearsals prior to Queen's College's staging of "Grease" April 14-16 at the Geoffrey Brown Auditorium at Q.C. (Photos: Queen's College)
It's been a little over five months in the making, but now the students at Queen's College (QC) are prepared to bring a romantic cult hit to the Bahamian stage -- "Grease". Their performance comes coincidentally on the heels of the January Fox televised adaptation of the 1971 musical, which was also made into a movie in 1978 and starred John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John and Stockard Channing.
In "Grease" good girl Sandy Olson to be played by Asha Collie and greaser (hood) Danny Zuko to be played by Kristian Rolle meet and fall in love over the summer of 1959. They never expect to see each other again. When it comes time to return to high school in the fall, however, they find themselves both attending Rydell High where they travel in two different worlds -- Sandy is a clean cut preppie from Australia, while Danny is a black-jacket greaser and leader of the local T-Bird gang. When Danny rebuffs Sandy in front of his friends in order to maintain his "coolness," Sandy storms off in tears and chooses to hang with the Pink Ladies, a group of pink-wearing girls led by Betty Rizzo played by India Sweeting. But it soon becomes apparent that Sandy and Danny are still in love -- and love always finds a way.
"The kids have been rehearsing since October when we held our first auditions and decided that we would do 'Grease,'" said Gregory Deane, head of the modern languages department at QC who is also a school alumnus, a veteran of the Dundas Centre for the Performing Arts stage, and the play's director.
"Grease which came out in the 70s still has a huge appeal to people, especially after the John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John movie, and then again with the re-release of the live production back in January."
He said the family event would make for a fantastic night out, as everybody knows the music.
The students in the production have the chops. Asha was previously a national children's choir member and has a voice on her, and she is against Kristian, who is not the typical long-haired white guy you would expect to play Danny, but has a really nice voice.
India is a dancer and talented singer and it shows in her portrayal of Rizzo; while Dominic Rollins who plays Kenickie brings the energy to not only his role, but the entire cast -- so much so that any rehearsal he's missed, Deane said the rest of the cast miss him tremendously.
In the staging of "Grease" QC will have almost 75 students taking to the stage, with as many working backstage to ensure the audience receives the full 1950s immersion.
"We've gone out of our way to ensure that most of the costuming is in line with the 50s. I recently went away and purchased a number of props and costumes for the production. High production value is what I'm going for, so we want to remain as true to the original production as we possibly can," he said.
The members of the black-jacket T-Bird gang
Educational experience
At QC they believe in catering to a wide cross-section of young people. As a fully comprehensive school operating under the Bahamas Conference of the Methodist Church, their interest lies not only in academic excellence, but also in raising well-rounded, courteous, spiritually grounded global citizens. To that end, the school affords students the opportunity to participate in a number of activities and clubs, one of the most popular being the productions it stages under their Broadway Over Queen's banner.
Shawn Turnquest, QC vice principal and head of school expressed pride in her school's performing arts program.
"We have a number of teachers who love and are interested in the performing arts, and we have a number of students who thrive on the performing arts and love performing. Every two years we've done something, and 'Grease' will be the second full production we've done -- the first was 'Guys and Dolls.'"
She said their students visit Europe every two years, and every time they go through London, that Deane ensures that they go to the theater. The music department she said takes students to either Atlanta or New York annually. Last year in Atlanta the students saw Disney's "Newsies" a musical, and on another trip caught "The Lion King."
"Our desire is to expose students to theater, and because so many of them cannot travel, we want to bring the theater to them," said Turnquest.
She said the school's auditorium will be turned into a theater for the staging of "Grease" and that she hopes theater-goers get into the spirit of the event and attend decked out in their poodle skirt, tennis shoes and bobby socks, which they are encouraging.
The 50s theme will not only be on stage, but will be carried throughout the event as the ushers, refreshment servers and ticket takers will all be clad in 50s inspired clothing.
"It's going to be a great time," said Turnquest.
"Grease" will be QC's first production since it staged "Guys and Dolls" in 2014. Before that they had two Broadway revues -- "Broadway Over Queens I" in 2010 and "Broadway Over Queens II" in 2011 -- which were a mish mash of melodies and excerpts from different musicals.
Deane himself recalls that as a student at the institution he participated in productions such as "Oliver", "Guys and Dolls", "Fiddler on The Roof", and "Oklahoma" in the late 70s and early 80s before the school took a hiatus.
Having taken to the stage himself he said the value of the experience is almost immeasurable to the children, and is important in the education process.
"You can't really put a value on the worth of the experience," he said. "If nothing else the kids will remember their participation in a high school musical. We've always encouraged students to pursue performing arts, dramatic arts and visual arts."
In recent years QC students have received a number of awards in the National Arts Festival -- whether they acted, sang or engaged in choral performance.
The modern languages department head also makes it a point to expose his students to the theater as much as possible. Whenever he takes students abroad to Europe, a musical in London is always on the agenda. He said the music department also makes a point to take students to either New York where musicals on Broadway are also on the agenda. They recently went to see jazz musician Wynton Marsalis perform and took in the "Phantom of the Opera". In 2000 they took in the production of "Grease" in London's West End.
Fine tuning
With a week to the first official curtain call on "Grease," Deane said they are simply fine-tuning and dragging the children out of class, much to the reluctance of some of their teachers who are trying to get them ready for exams. With the countdown on, the children are excited about the upcoming performance.
"Once they get that audience in front of them, it's going to be a phenomenal performance -- that whole performer/audience sort of vibe is going to just make the performance that much better."
And while QC has paid out a pretty penny in staging productions of this nature, and Deane owning up to his taste tending to run over what the budget says they can afford, he sees the money spent as an investment in the children. He says it's an investment that pays back in ways that can't be measured financially.
"We do ultimately hope to make a profit that we can reinvest into our performing arts program and into the school itself in some way, but we spend, and then realize we could have cut a corner here or there, but overall in terms of the high production value, and the want on our part to immerse the theater-goer in the experience, then we're going to spend what we need."
The Broadway Over Queen's showcase of "Grease" will take place April 14-16 at The Geoffrey Brown Auditorium at QC with 7:30 p.m. shows and a 2 p.m. Saturday matinee. Tickets are $15 adults, $10 students and $8 matinee for children under 12. The box office is at the school, where they can be contacted at 677-7600.
Dana Wallace will play the role of the very annoying Patti.
Shavaughn Moss
Guardian Lifestyle Editor
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