Another Live TV Musical

This just in...

Fox has announced that, following the lead of NBC (okay, they didn't say that part...), it too will be broadcasting a live musical, scheduled for 2015.  The show they've chosen to do is Grease -- which they're now calling Grease Live."

No cast has been named yet, but the announcement said that the show will feature a "young ensemble cast"  For all I know, they'll bring in some of the cast of their network's series Glee.  Given that show's success, it's sort of surprising that Fox hasn't thought of doing this before.

I’m not a huge fan of Grease, but who cares?  If it’s what’s needed to help push this sort of thing forward, and make live musicals a trend, more power to it.  And not just live musicals, but live dramatic productions, as well, like CBS did several years back with George Clooney and Fail Safe. 

And besides, what’s good about the choice is that from what I know about the stage show is that it’s quite different from the movie, so people will see a very different experience.  Quite a few of the stage show's songs were dropped, and a lot of new songs, included several of the now most-famous were added (like "Hopelessly Devoted to You" and "You're the One That I Want."  

That said, in subsequent revivals of the show, they've incorporated some changes that were made for the film, especially with a few of the songs,

I remember when Grease was just a local production in Chicago by a couple guys, Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey, writing an homage to their Taft High School.  It’s sure come a long way…

Including all the way Down Under to Australia.  Here's the Australian cast performing one of the original songs, "Summer Nights."