“Grease is the word” is the now-famous line sung in 1972 during a stage musical called “Grease.” It then turned into a movie musical (1978) starring John Trovolta and Olivia Newton-John and became one of the highest-grossing musical movies of all time.

This year, “Grease” was produced by the Millikan Drama Department for their spring production.

In the past, Millikan has performed other Broadway musicals and every year students dedicate hours after school, often staying on campus until 9 p.m. to rehearse.

When it comes to student involvement in the musical, there is no denying it wouldn’t happen without them. Millikan’s Play Production class is hard at work building props, making costumes, and doing hair and makeup for the 64 cast-members in the production.

Salisa Chantori, a senior in PEACE is the Head of All Crews and was cast as Cha-Cha in the production. She says, “When finding a balance between work and performing, I noticed that preparation and a dedicated team all working toward the same goal makes everything easier and makes the production run smoothly.”

This year they double-cast the show, meaning there were two groups of lead performers for the female roles. Theater director Mike Bradich explains, “We tried to make a single cast list, and realized, ‘how are some of these people not going to have a lead in the show?’ it just seemed crazy.”

The musical was a big hit, having a full audience in each of the six performances over the course of two weekends Feb 28, Mar 1st, 7th, and 8th. Congratulations to all of the student performers for such an amazing production, and if you didn’t see the musical this year, keep an eye out for next year’s March musical!

In the meantime, the theater classes will be hosting the Drama Showcase in May! It will be full of performances from different plays, musicals, and monologues all student ran. If you would like to support the program the performances would be on May 9th, 2025.