CHICAGO — Loved "Grease: Live" Sunday night? We've got your guide to the classic musical's Chicago connections.
The musical follows good girl Sandy Dumbrowski and greaser Danny Zuko as they stumble their way through love, friendships and school in the '50s. It was co-written by Jim Jacobs, who went to Taft High School in Norwood Park and partially based the story on his experiences at the school.
Jacobs was class of 1960. At his 40th year high school reunion, he told the Tribune he was afraid his classmates would say he owed them $1 million.
The characters in Grease, he said, aren't anyone specific from Taft.
"They are all composites," Jacobs said.
However, "The Pink Ladies was a real gang at Taft," he said. "They were seniors when I was a freshman." He has described them as "the toughest broads I've ever seen," describing how they would hide razor blades in their hair as weapons, as well as carry pointed can openers.
There was a male counterpart to the Pink Ladies called the Goombas.
The ongoing success of Grease "has really kept me stuck in high school for the last 30 years," he told the Trib's Rick Kogan in 2000. "People just won't let me leave."
That's not the only Chicago connection. The 1971 musical was first performed in the original Kingston Mines club before it became a Broadway hit and, eventually, the classic 1978 movie.
Sunday's TV special on Fox stared Julianne Hough as Sandy, Aaron Tveit as Danny and Vanessa Hudgens as Rizzo.
The show got mostly good reviews: Vanity Fair called it "three hours of high-energy, high-camp theatrics." Grease: Live ratings were good: some 18.6 million viewers saw the show.
GREASE Co-Author Jim Jacobs Gives $50,000 To Chicago's @AmericanTheater @GreaseLivehttps://t.co/AEFsS31QlM pic.twitter.com/NZ8fJLAVDV
— broadwayworld (@broadwayworld) October 29, 2015
Today, Taft has about 3,000 students, with a minority enrollment of 52 percent— 39.6 percent Hispanic, 7.5 percent Asian and 2.2 percent black.
Ranked at Chicago Public Schools' highest level, Taft "reflects the diversity of our global society while setting the highest expectations as the premier neighborhood school in Chicago," according to the CPS website.
On this DNAinfo Radio Extra recorded in Nov. 2014, reporter Heather Cherone reveals some interesting background about the real-life Thunderbirds and Pink Ladies:
