Welcoming Broadway: ‘Grease-The Musical’ comes to Karachi

Rehearsals for ‘Grease - The Musical’ are under way.

KARACHI:

Nida Butt, the woman behind the biggest plays in the city, such as ‘Karachi - The Musical’ and ‘Mamma Mia’, looks forward to enthrall the audience with the country’s first licenced production of the internationally acclaimed, ‘Grease - The Musical’.

Grease by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey has been the highest grossing musical to date in the United States. Quite a successful hit in 1978, it starred John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John. It holds an impressive stage history as its original Broadway production broke the records with a run of 3,388 performances, making it the Broadway’s 14th longest running show to date.

The adaptation of this musical is taking place for the first time in Pakistan. The musical is set to be on stage from January 16 at Arts Council of Pakistan. “Broadway is finally coming home,” exclaimed Butt, the director of the musical and the founder of Made for Stage Productions. To give out the details about the musical, a pre-event press conference was held by Butt and her husband and co-director, Hamza Jafri, at the MAD School on Friday.

Butt hopes the musical will set a precedent for other theatre companies and will help their stage productions get recognition in the coming days. “Our theatre industry will only grow and develop if the stakeholders make responsible decisions,” she said, while lauding the progress during the last few years. “When I stepped in the Pakistani theatre scene around eight years ago, there was not much happening,” she said adding, “And now it is difficult to even book a hall at the Arts Council.”

This project has been her dream project for a long time, she said. For her, the last eight months had proved to be a challenging and exhilarating experience at the same time. “I am lucky that I am working with a talented cast and a dedicated team who work day and night to bring Pakistani audience a show they will never forget.”  The production features Ayesha Omar as Sandy, Ahmed Ali as Danny and Sanam Saeed as Rizzo. The musical depicts high-school teenage shenanigans, presenting the 1950s era with a timeless musical appeal, all too vivid through live music and dance. “The musical will have its evergreen storyline with replication of the original Broadway choreography,” said Butt. “Even though dance is not very acceptable in our society, it remains a necessity for the musical,” she admitted.

“I wish my show is seen by people from all classes and not just one group of the society,” she said before admitting that the tickets prices will be relatively higher. “[It is] because we had to bear the cost of a production worth Rs12 million.” The tickets are priced at Rs2,000 per head and are available at Agha’s Superstore, McDonald’s and the Mad School.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 4^th, 2014.