Grease - the musical!

2009 has been a fantastic year for performing arts at Liberton – a highly successful celebrity ‘L’ Factor, a great Carol Concert and success in the Edinburgh schools Battle of the Bands contest. Now as the icing on the cake of our 50th anniversary year we present out first whole school production in many years – the musical ‘Grease’.

Grease was chosen as it was written in 1959; the year that Liberton High School opened. While the young people of Edinburgh were dancing to rock and roll, greasing their hair and falling in love, so is our cast at the fictional American Rydell High school.

Many of the students who were successful in the ‘L’ Factor have major roles in Grease. Kirsty Evans (S6) takes the lead role of the sweet and innocent Sandy. Kirsty won the ‘L’ Factor and was invited to perform with Sandi Thom at her Dunfermline gig.

Cecily Kingston (S6) and Iain McBain (S6) took second prize in the ‘L’ factor and take on the roles of Rizzo – the acerbic leader of the pink ladies and Danny the supercool t-bird who steals Sandy’s heart. Third prize winner Uni Kim also had a principal part and will be flexing her comedy muscles as Jan. These four students are talented musicians who have performed at many events during their Liberton careers. They all studied Higher Music this year.

The other success story from our ‘L’ factor is the incredibly talented Jack Robertson (S4) who toured with Sandi Thom, and is being mentored by her, also lends his vocal talent to Grease. Jack is cast in the dual role of Johnny Casino/Teen Angel singing the much loved ‘Beauty School Dropout’.

Many of the audience will be familiar with Grease from the 1978 film version and may be surprised that the musical has some differences. As well as the very familiar songs ‘Summer Nights’, ‘We go together’ and ‘Sandra Dee’, the musical also includes more unfamiliar songs such as ‘Freddy My Love’ and ‘Shaking at the High School Hop’.

Preparing for Grease has been a whole school effort and the non-singing star of the show is definitely the car – Grease Lightning. It has been lovingly designed and built by members of the CDT department who have been burning the midnight oil for many weeks. The car is based on a 1940’s ford convertible and is the subject of one of the favourite songs from the show sung by Mark O’Neil – our current head boy of the school who is playing Kenickie.

The show will take place from Tuesday 16 June – Thursday 18 June at Liberton High School. Tickets can be reserved by calling 0131 664 7514. (Words provided by Mrs Graham. 10 June 2009)