Wop Baba Lumop, A Wap Bam Boom! (That was the alternate title for this post.)

This is a long one, but worth a read if you enjoy behind-the-scenes details about the making of a live TV musical. What follows is my experience working on GREASE LIVE for the past month.

First of all, PINCH ME that I get to work on two live TV musicals back-to-back — The Wiz Live aired Dec. 3, and Grease Live aired Jan. 31st. This has been an exciting and very satisfying few months work-wise and I don’t know that it’ll be topped anytime soon. It’s a dream to work on projects I enjoy this much, with teams of people — at both shows — who are the best in the biz.

Before I delve into details about Grease Live, allow me to express gratitude for what my daily routine has been like for the month of January — I’m staying with good friends in Toluca Lake, literally around the corner from other very good friends. I walk to work every day through my favorite neighborhood and stop at Priscilla’s, my favorite coffee shop in all of Los Angeles. Then I arrive the Warner Bros. lot — possibly the most magical film / TV location in the world, with a deep and rich history — to work on a live TV musical, combining two of my favorite mediums. After a long day I walk back home and hang out with my roommates / friends, who occasionally have homemade dessert waiting for me. I’m not sure life gets better than this? I was grateful for every single day of this past month, soaking up the experience from the moment my alarm clock went off each morning until I laid my head down each night.

Because of all the walking — 35 minutes each way between home and work, plus lots of miles on the WB lot itself — I log upwards of 15,000 steps per day. I think 21,000 steps is my record:

So what’s my contribution to Grease Live? As the script coordinator I facilitate the distribution of script revisions, daily schedules, rundowns, as well as miscellaneous documents like the cast list, location list, plots, etc. I maintain and update the Staff List and cross-check that for the credits. I prepare script binders for crew members and maintain our lovely mailbox system and distro tables, moving them to different stages at Warner Bros. every few days with the help of a PA and golf cart.

Flashback to last December: our Kenickie, actor Carlos PenaVega, posted this photo of Aaron Tveit (Danny) to Instagram — and all I can see is our mailbox in the background:

The cast and creative team have been in rehearsals since Thanksgiving at an off-site location (working hard six days a week) before moving to the Warner Bros. lot on January 4th, which is the day I start working on Grease Live. I am sorry to have missed this first month of rehearsals because it’s when everyone gets to know each other and becomes tight-knit. Regardless, I am just happy to be here.

My days are typically busy in the mornings and evenings, with some downtime during the afternoon. I spend time observing rehearsals, in close proximity to my supervisors (Adam & Michael) should they need anything.

Here are a few photos from dry blocking Thunder Road, the race scene between Danny and the Scorpions:

This is before cameras arrive so they are testing out the smoke and light effects:

I take a short (and mostly out-of-focus) video of this rehearsal.

This next shot is taken after the cameras are in place, as we watch from a monitor backstage:

An early look at the Rydell High gymnasium; our art department crew is still putting on the finishing touches inside and constructing the stage area:

Frosty’s Diner:

An early glance at the “carnival look” for the gym:

Drive-in movie theater, also the location of Thunder Road:

The auto body shop:

I love watching the song “Greased Lightning” come together — the car does a fast transformation mid-number as cameras follow the actors stage right while a bunch of crew guys run on-stage with pieces of an exterior shell that fit neatly over the car. When the camera cuts back to it, it looks like a totally different vehicle. Adding to that already impressive transformation, our actors quick-change into blue and silver body jump suits to bring us fully into their automotive fantasy. Near the end of the song, the camera follows our actors stage right once again, and the same crew members rush in to remove the car’s exterior. By the time the actors get back to the vehicle — sans glitter jump suits — the theatrical moment is over and we’re back to the beat-up jalopy (a new addition to my vocabulary). I never grow tired of watching the crew do this mid-scene transformation. Below they get ready to practice with a blue exterior (we used a red one during the broadcast).

Camera blocking “Summer Nights” in the gym:

And rehearsing the intricate spring dance sequences, first in street clothes (with rehearsal skirts for the women) and then in full costume:

Rehearsal at Frosty’s Diner:

I love this next shot — the broadcast begins with a close-up of Danny and Sandy at the beach, then pulls back to reveal the boom mic, apple boxes, sound stage, etc. as we break the fourth wall and move into the opening number, “Grease is the Word.”

Below, Jessie J rehearses our opening number — the first time we saw the whole thing on camera was exactly one week before the live broadcast. I’m impressed at just how smooth this whole process is given the pace at which it comes together.

The exterior of Rydell High, located on Midwest Street of the back lot:

And now with a jib in the foreground:

A look at the interior of Rydell High — while the exterior is a permanent part of the Warner Bros. back lot, the inside was built from scratch by production designer David Korins.

Principal McGee’s office:

The carnival begins load-in six days before the broadcast:

The exterior of Sandy’s house, where Julianne Hough sings “Hopelessly Devoted to You”:

That’s the lowdown on our sets. This is a map of the whole lot with our stages outlined in red — it shows where everything is relative to each other, as well as other features of the back lot:

I have a bunch of images from the Warner Bros. back lot to share — I’m endlessly fascinated by the fact that there are entire fictional worlds that exist on these sound stages. Currently, here are some shows I can think of off the top of my head that shoot here: Big Bang Theory, Mike & Molly, Mom, Supergirl, Undateable. Fuller House just wrapped (on one of the Grease Live stages, no less) and they are loading in Gilmore Girls sets during our last few weeks here. In recent history, shows like Friends, Will & Grace, and ER shot here. If you go back further, hundreds of movies have shot at Warner Bros. over the last century — one that stands out to me is My Fair Lady, which shot on Stage 26 where our Rydell High gymnasium is currently located. If these studio walls could talk…

A car commercial shoots here one day in our first week:

Here’s the Full House exterior, where we stage Boyz II Men and Ana Gasteyer during the opening number of Grease Live:

A sign on our stage remains from the recent Netflix revival of Full House:

I think this set-up is from Undateable, which airs live every week (!) on network TV. That is impressive. Shout out to my friend Joe who is the post supervisor over there.

No blog post would be complete without a shot of my meals. I’ll limit it to two — I typically go for the salad bar at the commissary for lunchtime (hummus for the win), and on weekends we have delicious catered meals at which I always eat way too much. Not pictured: the many times we order Zankou chicken kabob plates with a side of tabbouleh for dinner (I work most nights until 10p).

Pretty nighttime shot as I leave the production office to bring revisions, schedules, and rundowns to the stages. Remember when the Daytime Emmys were held here last April? It wasn’t even that long ago, yet I had zero idea that eight months later I’d be walking down this street multiple times a day.

Sunset one evening:

There are two areas called Central Perk — the one photographed below is for employees and it features a Jamba Juice, Starbucks, and small gift shop inside. Then there’s another Central Perk for visitors taking the Warner Bros. studio tour, which is next to a larger gift shop and impressive museum (more about that in a future post).

How neat that you can get Central Perk coffee on this lot? Nice touch for TV fans coming on the WB tour.

This area doubles as Chicago (check out that L train) and was used as the set of ER many years ago:

There’s a triangle of streets that look like New York:

Supergirl prepares for a night shoot — I’m guessing they’ve brought in all these leaves to make it look less like Los Angeles:

I sneak a shot of Supergirl later that evening:

A mini Emerson reunion! Andy is working on a new project on the lot and kindly shows Adam and me around his office in exchange for a Grease tour. Very fun.

One afternoon we borrow a golf cart to explore the lot on official script business… that’s Michael (script supervisor) and Adam (production supervisor) and yours truly:

Here’s some brief footage from our drive… and the first time I’ve ever driven a golf cart. I only hit one pedestrian and they’re totally fine now. J/K.

Let’s move onto a bigger vehicle — this is our video truck where broadcast director Alex Rudzinski directs the show. That’s our superstar associate director Carrie Havel and technical director Eric Becker sitting in the front row:

Pssst… if you haven’t yet seen the video of Carrie calling shots during Grease Live, check it out. It’s ridiculously impressive to watch her call shots while counting music bars and beats. CNN did a follow-up piece after the video went viral; that is worth checking out, too.

On January 20th we celebrate our director Tommy Kail’s birthday with cupcakes on-set after rehearsing a scene in Frenchy’s bedroom. And right after this I log onto Facebook to see Lin-Manuel Miranda (creator of Broadway’s hit Hamilton, which Tommy also directed) posting about his pal’s birthday. On this same date last year Hamilton opened off-Broadway. Again, pinch me for being in any way associated with a member of that creative team.

We had one day off in the roughly two weeks leading up the show, and on that day our own ‘Rizzo’ Vanessa Hudgens very kindly hosted a Grease Live spin class at SoulCycle in Hollywood. If you ever want to get your butt kicked, take a spin class with professional dancers. My quads and arms hurt for three full days afterwards.

Okay, back to work! (I just had a Wiz Live flashback to Evillene.)

This is part of Midwest Street as we prep for the carnival finale. That blue lift is where our SkyCam operates from — the same kind of camera that flies across NFL stadiums for wide shots during games.

Some of our exteriors at night:

One of the make-up rooms off of Stage 26:

The week of the show, we did two full run-throughs on Thursday, a friends & family run-through on Friday, and a dress rehearsal on Saturday. I watched each time from the head stage manager’s station on Stage 26 above Frosty’s Diner set; this was my view:

Part of our audio team is located off to the right — this is where they mic and de-mic the actors. That black curtain area is a quick-change booth; it’s where the Pink Ladies switch into their “Beauty School Dropout” costumes, among other changes.

Here’s a look inside one of the change booths on Stage 23 — each actor has a personal chair and specific notes from wardrobe about what costume to get into next.

Here’s a closer look at the notes from wardrobe:

A look at our classic prop cars sitting outside Stage 23 — these are used for the drive-in movie scene:

And here’s Greased Lightning on stage:

We had many special guests during rehearsals — one afternoon both Ryan Gosling and Jeremy Jordan stopped by. Wish I had photos of that! Then during our friends & family run-through two actors from Supergirl visited in full costume: Melissa Benoist and Jenna Dewan-Tatum (photo on the left via). I hear Aaron Paul was there too.

The day before the live show, we head outside to rehearse “We Go Together” (every time I link to a song in this blog post I go back and watch it again on Youtube… what a great number this is):

After Saturday night’s dress rehearsal, the entire cast and crew gathers on the town square for a group photo. I have yet to see the photo, but when I do I’ll add it to this post. Here’s a shot I took as we all gathered:

And now we’ve arrived at show day!

Much has been made of the fact that the weather forecast looked like this… 100% chance of rain on show day, 0% chance of rain every other day of the week. Nature does not care about our little show.

So our kick-ass production team amps up efforts to keep everyone dry — they purchase hundreds of umbrellas and towels. In an effort to prevent slipping accidents, they hire extra PAs to dry off feet as people enter stage from the pouring rain.

I arrive at work on show day in a full-length slicker and rain boots. But rain isn’t our only adversary today — the wind is just as bad. Witness these overturned flowerpots on the Warner Bros. lot:

I snap this photo around 10am. What are the odds this will clear up by 4pm when we go live on the east coast?

Guess what… things TOTALLY clear up after lunch:

But wind is still a major factor. We have a tent structure over the top and sides of Rydell High to protect people in bleachers from the rain, but (ironically now that it’s not raining) the tent is deemed too unsafe if wind speeds reached over 30-35mph. The sides are removed to make it safer. It will be a last-minute call from the Burbank Fire Department captain if we can do our opening number as rehearsed or go with Plan B, which involves adjusting Jessie J’s route during the opening number and rolling back a short part of our dress rehearsal footage in front of the high school. The call is made around 3:40pm, just twenty minutes before air — the structure is deemed safe enough for people to be underneath. No need to change anything; we can proceed as planned. Whew!

Before we go live, Carlos PenaVega (Kenickie) greets audience members outside between Stage 26 and Rydell High:

My co-worker Frank snaps a lot of great photos on show night and with his permission I’m sharing a couple in this post, like this one of a car used in the opening number:

Just minutes before showtime, our director Tommy Kail addresses the audience on-camera in the gymnasium:

Here is my view behind our head stage manager Garry Hood:

And just like that, with two months of rehearsals behind us, it’s time to share our creation with over 12 million people. We get just one shot — this is opening and closing night, all rolled into one.

While chatting with our producer Adam Siegel after the show, he described it as “playing blackjack while jumping out of an airplane” — an adrenaline rush on top of an adrenaline rush.

At 30 seconds to air, I press record on my little point-and-shoot camera to capture the opening number from my POV. I get chills (“they’re multiplying”… sorry, can’t help it) just listening to our broadcast director Alex Rudzinski as he tells everyone to enjoy this. And then we’re live and Jessie J is belting out “Grease is the Word” right below where I’m standing:

From then on everything moves so quickly. I check Facebook and Twitter during commercial breaks, so grateful for the kind words from my friends and family. I take screen grabs of funny tweets. And then shut my laptop as soon as we’re back on the air to watch the show.

My purpose in watching from this vantage point is to be ready with several full scripts on hand, plus access to a printer… so if anyone needs script pages, I’m prepared to run them down to cast members at a moment’s notice. This only happens once during the first run-through several days earlier — by now our cast has got everything down pat.

During the show I pop over into the booth next to ours to watch a scene in Frosty’s Diner. I love that I can see this in person, as I watched both broadcasts of Peter Pan Live and The Wiz Live from our script office. That set-up was nice and cozy, but there is a palpable energy on stage during the live show that is fun to be around.

Over on Stage 23, my co-worker Frank snaps this shot during “Greased Lightning”:

Back on Stage 26, Boyz II Men serenade Carly Rae Jepsen (Frenchy) with “Beauty School Dropout”:

In the last hour of the broadcast, our Thunder Road scene airs — a live car chase shot on a soundstage with two mostly stationary vehicles. How did we make it look as real as it did? Check out the video linked below by our director Alex Rudzinksi to see what it looked like on-stage vs. screen. You’ll hear Yone, Alex’s assistant, counting to 100 in the background — this audio was not heard on-air, but the actors relied on her count so they knew when to make certain movements (i.e. when you hear 75, that’s Danny’s cue to press the button that makes flames come out of the car). Meanwhile, we have lighting and smoke effects, as well as superior camera work to make the shots jiggle so it appears the cars are in motion. Here’s the behind-the-scenes video of our Thunder Road race.

And before I know it, we’ve come to our last number. Break out the golf carts and take this baby across the finish line! Here’s ”We Go Together” as Aaron Tveit and a few other actors take the casts’ lives into their hands on national TV:

Carnival time, with 650 extras to fill out the crowds!

Oh man, talk about a RUSH.

Michael snaps a shot of our credit card — wahoo! It’s not every day my name is on national TV.

I was so confident that Grease Live would be well-received, and thankfully that proves to be the case. These are a few screenshots I find on my phone the next day:

In regards to social media, I put together a separate page of all my favorite Grease Live tweets — check them out if you want a good laugh. And here’s my favorite Grease Live recap which was posted by Vanity Fair; it’s hilarious.

Aww — this is a photo from last December 3rd of the Grease Live cast and creative team as they watch The Wiz Live. And below that is a photo of The Wiz Live crew members who gathered to watch Grease Live last Sunday. It warms my heart to see these live musicals supporting each other. Each broadcast pushes this newly-revived genre further and raises the bar a little higher. I’m so excited to see what awaits with Hairspray later this year.

With the live broadcast officially behind us, there’s only one thing left to do… PARTY!

The after party is held in the Rydell gymnasium set. It legitimately feels like a school dance, except way cooler because we have Boyz II Men, Joe Jonas, and Carly Rae Jepsen in attendance and not just on the DJ’s speakers. And our cast is full of professional dancers.

Hey look, it’s the super talented and good-looking Grease Live script team! (Major thanks to Adam & Michael for being so terrific to work for and with.)

I so enjoyed working again with stage manager Roy; we have crossed paths at Young & Restless and DGA meetings many times over the past decade.

Speaking of the DGA, this is our associate director team — Brad, Carrie, and Adam. They rock.

These guys are the two lynch pins in our production staff — rehearsal coordinator Frank (responsible for the photos I pointed out above) and our associate producer Jeremy.

It was an honor and delight to work with director Tommy Kail this past month. He is friendly, approachable, and so very good at what he does.

And here is one of our leads, Aaron Tveit — I first saw him on Broadway back in 2008 when he starred in the Tom Kitt & Brian Yorkey musical Next to Normal. And now Tom Kitt is our music director, Aaron is starring as Danny, and I’m just thrilled to be tangentially associated with them as part of the script team.

Now it’s dance time… here’s some brief footage from our party. Check out Julianne & Aaron dancing with original Grease cast members Didi Conn and Barry Pearl — it’s adorable.

As the party wraps up, Adam and I take some last-minute souvenir photos around the sets. We start in Frosty’s Diner, right next to the gym.

There are food trucks outside — so nice of our producers to make this happen. There’s a grilled cheese truck, a Mexican food truck, and an ice cream truck.

The halls of Rydell High are creepy at night:

And the carnival is eerily quiet.

And that’s a wrap on GREASE LIVE! I’m sure I’ve forgotten details and will update accordingly as they come back to me.

It’s been quite a journey and I’m glad to document it here to look back on in years to come. I am so grateful for this past month.

Hope you all enjoyed watching the live broadcast as much as we enjoyed making it!