Alumni Give In to Burbank School Officials : Cast Agrees to Clean Up ‘Grease’

The school authorities apparently won again.

Bowing to orders to clean up a production of the popular musical “Grease” at a Burbank high school tonight, members of an alumni cast said Thursday they agreed to eliminate “suggestive dancing, pelvic thrusts” and to tone down sexual lyrics and phrases.

Members of the adult cast, all alumni of John Burroughs High School, had said previously that they would refuse to perform rather than make the changes.

They complained that they had to fight the same battle eight years ago when they staged “Grease” as students, and that it was unreasonable to ask them to change the show just before the first performance.

But school officials remained adamant, and they were in position to back up their demands. The stage is on school property, and $9,000 in student-body funds was used for props, sets and costumes.

So Dana Anderson, supervisor of the production, said that the show must go on--although grudgingly.

“To the best of our ability, we will make the changes in the show that they have asked for,” Anderson said. “I’m not happy about it, but our main concern is to have our show go on.”

The play tonight is being performed by two casts, alumni and current students, who will each stage one act. The joint performance is a benefit for a fund established in memory of the play’s co-writer, Warren Casey, who died in November of AIDS.

Anderson said that ticket demand had been high and that those planning to attend include Jim Jacobs, the play’s co-author, and actress Olivia Newton-John, who starred in the film version.

James Perino, deputy superintendent of instruction for the Burbank Unified School District, warned earlier this week that “Grease” would not go on if the cast did not tone down the show. He said the district had a responsibility to put on a tasteful production for general audiences.

The musical comedy, a nostalgic tribute to the teen-agers of the 1950s, was one of the longest-running shows in Broadway history. School administrators objected to sexual language, to a part in a song in which a teen-age boy lies on the ground and thrusts his pelvis in the air and to a dance number in which a boy grabs a girl’s breasts.

The current Burroughs students performed a toned-down version of “Grease” last weekend and are scheduled to perform the entire show at a Saturday matinee.

Anderson said the alumni cast would “try to keep” the demanded changes during performances on Saturday and next weekend, which raised the possibility of history repeating itself.

When many in the same cast performed “Grease” as students eight years ago, district administrators also demanded that they change the show.

And so they did.

Except for the final performance.