In April 1973, my husband (I’ll call him Marv) and I left our home in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and headed for New York City. Marv was a terrific math professor at the University of Michigan, and he’d already earned tenure there. Thanks to recognition by other mathematicians, he was invited to speak at a math conference to be held at NYC’s famed Biltmore Hotel, and I decided to tag along.
A bunch of my law-school classmates were living in NYC just then, and I contacted a few of them about getting together while Marv and I were in town. One of my favorite classmates was my close friend Arlene, and she immediately made plans to see both of us one evening during our stay.
I was thrilled when Arlene surprised me with a terrific plan. She was purchasing tickets for all three of us to see a hit musical playing on Broadway. I’ve always been a huge fan of Broadway musicals, beginning when I was a kid, and I was excited at the prospect of seeing this one. I may have heard something about it even before we got to NYC, but I didn’t know any details. In the pre-internet era, it was hard to get details like that.
After a scrumptious dinner somewhere in Manhattan, the three of us set out for Broadway and the musical Arlene had chosen. We excitedly took our seats in the balcony as the lights dimmed and a hush fell over the audience
As the curtain rose, I gasped. The musical was “Grease,” and it began at a 1950s class reunion at a Chicago public high school. The graduation year, prominently displayed on the stage, was the same year that Marv and I had graduated from our own public high schools! As we watched, our mouths agape, we soon figured out that the story focused on the “greasers” at the high school one of its writers attended.
The parallel with our own lives was undeniable. No, we hadn’t attended schools where “greasers” dominated, but I clearly recalled the students my friends and I jokingly called “hoods”—short for “hoodlums.” These kids were not terribly different from the working-class teenagers in “Grease.” My school was dominated by middle-class kids, not the “hoods,” but we were all keenly aware of each other.
It turned out that the musical was first produced in Chicago in 1971, when Marv and I were living in California and totally unaware of local theater in Chicago. It finally landed in NYC in 1972, about a year before we saw it, and it became the enduring hit we all know. Even better known: The 1978 film version that became a worldwide sensation. “Grease” went on to earn both Broadway and movie fandom.
The music in the Broadway show we saw that night was astounding: It borrowed the sounds of early rock-and-roll hits that Marv and I knew and loved. It’s not surprising that many of the songs in “Grease” remain popular today.
When the curtain finally came down, the three of us looked at each other. We had all shared that era in the ‘50s just portrayed on the stage. I was in a state of shock, trying to recover from the profound experience of reliving a slice of life from our high school days.
You know what? I don’t think I’ve ever completely recovered.
susanjustwrites
Susan Just Writes 