Review: Suncoast Broadway Dinner Theatre Presents GREASE

Seeing Grease at the Suncoast Broadway Dinner Theatre was a rather surreal experience. The show is so iconic — set in the 1950s, with catchy songs by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey — that some of the audience members came dressed in their fave Fifties attire. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a slew of septuagenarian women drinking fizzy Hickey from Kenickie cocktails while donning Pink Lady jackets and poodle skirts. It was like The Rocky Horror Picture Show for blue hairs. Thank goodness the audience was respectful and didn’t treat the show as some kind of karaoke-from-hell sing-a-long (which would be my nightmare, like hearing recent teens at Wicked attempting — and most times failing — to hit the high note of “Defying Gravity”).

I am always torn about Grease. Here is a show that is as beloved as any musical ever written. It has wonderful songs that enter the brain and refuse to escape. It has characters that we treat as our own high school friends from long ago — Danny, Sandy, Rizzo and the gang. People hold the show near and dear to their hearts. And I get that. But the show also has the worst message of any musical this side of The Little Mermaid: Change who you are — your clothing, your personality, your entire being — in order to get your man. Its opposite is found in Hairspray, also set in the past, but with a more uplifting spirit: Celebrate who you are no matter your size or the color of your skin.

At the end of Grease, the main character, Sandy — a sweet outsider, a cheerleader, so pretty and pure — wants to nab the same boy she fell head over heels in love last summer: Danny Zuko. But he’s a cool-cat T-Bird and acts aloof in front of their friends, and then when they are finally together at the Drive In, he puts the moves on her and she, being a "good girl," escapes his clutches. It’s all rather cute, harmless fun. 

But then come those not-so-magic changes. Both Danny and Sandy want to change for each other. Danny, in his attempt to hook Sandy, joins the track team, but he soon dumps that idea. Sandy, in order to ensnare Danny, gets an entire makeover — turning from Miss Polly Purebred to Slut of the Month at the drop of a hat. That’s where the musical ends —with Sandy, the leather-clad, cigarette-smoking neo-slut — finally getting her man; she changes while he ultimately does not. Yes, all is forgiven by the audience because the song introducing Sandy’s makeover — “You’re the One That I Want” — is so mega-popular (including being a #1 hit from the 1970s featuring John Travolta and Olivia Netwon John). But that doesn’t alter the fact that it’s an awful message. 

That said, Grease is so entertaining and fast-paced that even its cringiest moments — flirty teachers, the mention of a racial epithet, or the talk of someone putting an aspirin in a soda to drug a girl — don’t affect it. Its musical numbers are so boisterous and well done; even if the non-musical moments aren’t as magical, that doesn’t take away from the infectious joy that Grease exudes. And the production at the Suncoast Broadway Dinner Theatre is tops.  This is one rip-roarin’ production of Grease.

As Sandy, Jessica Hoadley captures the sweeter side of Sandy without making her sickeningly saccharin. Act 2 is where she gets to showcase her vocal chops with a sensational version of “Hopelessly Devoted to You” and “Look at Me, I’m Sadra Dee (Reprise).” As Danny, her knight in shining armor (or rather, a T-Bird leather jacket), Harry Sperduto is perfectly cast. He has a certain Adrian Zmed charm, especially in the song “Sandy,” where he’s stranded at the Drive-In. 

The talented Cassie Vitale comes across as almost too glamorous, too demure at times, to play the tough, street smart, bold Rizzo. She gets the sarcasm right, but it seems like she belongs in a sorority rather than as the ball-breakin’ leader of the Pink Ladies. But any casting questions instantly float away when she sings Rizzo’s heartfelt plea for understanding, “There Are Worse Things I Could Do.” In the song, Rizzo thinks she’s “p.g.” (pregnant) and tries to make no apologies for her life choices (“I don’t steal, and I don’t lie, but I can feel and I can cry, a fact I’ll bet you never knew,” she sings). And Vitale nails the tune, baring the soul of Rizzo in one of the better versions of the song I have ever heard.

The T-Birds — Brady Ryan Phillips as Kenickie, Eric Barnum as Doody, and Elias Husgafvel as Sonny — all do fine work, although they sometimes seem to recede into the background. Still, in their capable hands, “Greased Lighnin’” is a veritable showstopper. Speaking of which...the car turned out to be wonderful, especially as it changed from a beat-up jalopy to a shiny speedster in the seeming blink of an eye.

Beth Anderson is simply wonderful as bespectacled Marty, and her “Freddy, My Love,” never one of the show’s more famous songs, gets a standout treatment here. Anderson is always in character, just right as the more experienced Pink Lady, and you feel her sheer joy of performing.   

Rachel Knowles is quite good as the hair-doomed Frenchy, and she doesn’t fall into the trap of trying to copy Didi Conn’s cartoony accent from the 1978 movie. As her Teen Angel, Terry Farley steals the show as one of the great cameo characters in any musical.  Farley is equally good as the oily older disc jockey, Vince Fontane, who just wants to ickily flirt with all the teenage girls during a high school dance.    

Katie Van Horn is perfection as the attitudinal Cha-Cha, who just wants to dance with somebody. Zack Olds does well in a variety of roles. Andre Spathelf-Sanders is one of the more animated Eugenes I’ve ever seen. And Ellen Sisley plays Miss Lynch in a way I’ve never experienced; she’s fun to watch with her little dance moves, but I never got the vibe of the no-nonsense, harder-than-nails, scary teacher. She’s too loosey-goosey here, not fear-inducing like, say, Umbridge from the world of Harry Potter. (Sadly, we’ve all had a Miss Lynch or two in our lives.)

One of the very best in the cast is Katie Davis as the annoying Patty Simcox. She bursts with so much energy, and you can’t wait to see her take over the stage whenever she’s on. 

Kayleigh Robinson is just right as the foodaholic Jan, and in the single best performance of the show, Nazmokeem Harvey blew the audience away as Roger. When he and Robinson’s Jan sing “Mooning,” an ode to baring your butt, we all were over the moon with joy. He hit some stellar notes you didn’t even know existed. It turned a throwaway number — usually funny but nothing more — into the very best song of the entire show. “Summer Nights” is usually my favorite, and although that’s done quite well here, it doesn’t hold a candle to what Harvey and Robinson do with “Mooning.”

Director and choreographer Alyssa Sarnoff has a guided a production that’s just about the fastest Grease I have ever encountered (and I’ve seen the show dozens of times). Tom Hansen’s sets and Ryan Belock’s projections work quite well, keeping the action moving from place to place, aided by Dalton Hamilton’s lighting. 

Best of all is the live band, led by musical director Zachary Ryan on keyboards, Ben Smallwood on guitar, Irv Goldberg on bass and Marcario Buendia on drums.  Special shout out to Eduardo Marichales who enlivens the show with stunning sax work (Raphael Ravenscroft, eat your heart out).

Dinner was OK, if you like Burger Palace Beef Sliders and whipped potatoes so thin they almost become a soup. The rolls, the steamed vegetables and an ice cream sundae with extra fudge turned out to be favorites. You can also indulge in some boozy milkshakes, including a Pink Lady (strawberry ice cream, Bailey’s strawberries and cream and Tito’s vodka) or a Beauty School Dropout (vanilla ice cream, confetti cake batter, Tito’s vodka and iced animal crackers).

The audience was truly into the spirit of the production, and as an escape from our current modern-day reality of headache-inducing headlines and national nightmares, Grease turns out to be a wondrous antidote. You forget all your troubles, all the current news that bogs us down. That’s why we need the theatre now more than ever. We either deal with tough subjects that need to be addressed or we escape into a sort of fantasy land, including one from nearly seven decades ago. But even with its questionable and disconcerting plot, I’ll take the fantasy of Grease over our current reality any day!