Fox’s first live musical production Grease: Live aired this past Sunday. As a huge musical theater person and an even bigger Grease fan, I was beyond excited. Going in with such high hopes is always worrisome, but I can say that the show exceeded my expectations. They really knocked it out of the park.
I was fortunate to get tickets to be a part of the live audience, which is probably what made it more magical for me. There is no denying that this cast worked together really well. The show was packed with stars like Mario Lopez, Carly Rae Jepsen, Boys II Men and even Joe Jonas’ group DNCE. The diversity displayed made for a great show.
There were many high points in the show, the cinematography, Vanessa Hudgens heart wrenching rendition of There Are Worse Things I Could Do and Carlos PenaVega as Kenickie (I still have a crush on that character). However, there’s one character I haven’t stopped gushing about since I left the studio on Sunday: Doody.
Yes, his name is Doody. Played by Jordan Fisher, Doody stole the hearts of the whole audience both on the set and at home.
If you asked someone to list all the T-birds from the movie Grease, I doubt they would be able to by name. But no one here will forget about Doody this time around. One of the main highlights of the show for me was Doody’s solo Those Magic Changes. It was constructed and performed beautifully. I’ve had it on repeat ever since the soundtrack got released on Apple Music.
The reason audiences everywhere fell in love with Doody is because of the actor playing him, Jordan Fisher. Earlier I got a chance to interview him and he’s really awesome. He’s a loveable triple threat and obviously very talented. He was able to stand on his own during a duet with Aaron Tveit. Not an easy task!
My favorite moments from him however, came from behind the scenes. For the opening number they had some of the audience out in the cold. As we were standing there the Navy Seals who were part of the audience were standing against a barricade before the show started. Jordan came out of his trailer and personally hand thanked every Seal for their service. He shook their hands and told them to enjoy the show. By this point my heart was in my stomach, because he’s talented AND a total sweetheart. The total package!
When we were sitting inside during the middle of the show right before the Greased Lightning scene, Doody and the other T-birds [David Del Rio, Andrew Call] came into the audience to shake hands with fans. They asked us if we were enjoying the show; which, how can we not when the cast is this talented and sweet? But, that small interaction made the experience 100x more special.
In short, I love Grease and I loved Grease: Live. I look forward to seeing Jordan Fisher’s career blow up after this. Lucky for us, he dropped a song mid show on Soundcloud, you can listen to it here!