Young stars ready to rock out in Grease

Year Eleven students Giorgia De Paoli, 17 and Jack Martin, 16, were both very young when they were introduced to the 1978 movie version of the stage show. 

“My parents grew up with it and as soon as I started singing and dancing Mum said I had to watch it,” Jack said.

“It’s one of my earliest memories, getting up on the table and singing and dancing along to the numbers from Grease.”

Giorgia said she loved it straight away.

“I was six or seven and I said everyone had to sit down and watch the movie with me and be quiet because I wanted to listen,” Giorgia said.

While the movie stars were both in their 20’s when the film was released, Marian’s production features high school students playing the characters of high school students, but the similarities don’t end there.

“Sandy is very much like me,” Giorgia said. “A lot of the lines in Grease people tell me I would say in real life.”

However, character development throughout the story meant Giorgia had to grow as an actor.

“It gives me a chance to explore my other abilities, to produce the character at the end,” she said. “I have to take me out of the picture, it’s not me on stage but the character, you have to take yourself out of it.”

Jack said rehearsals had pushed him to grow as well.

“It’s more of a challenge than Beauty and the Beast was,” he said. “I look for relatable parts of the character and see myself as the character. As an actor I’ve played similar parts but it’s definitely stretching my abilities further and I’m enjoying the challenge.”

Jack found Danny to be a challenge because of the way the character behaved around different people.

“He’s a bit of a conundrum, there’s multiple Dannys throughout the show,” he said. “There’s the nice guy with Sandy at the beach, then back at school he’s a jerk and there’s Danny with the boys and the girls, five or six different versions of him.”

Grease will run from Wednesday, June 15 through to Saturday, June 18. Tickets are on sale now at Griffith Regional Theatre.