'Grease' Licensing Question

[??]

Posted: 11/15/07 at 1:44am

Hi all,

First off...please avoid all "why would you even want to" etc etc comments. I'd just like to know the answer if anyone has it. Thank you

I was just curious. When any company is doing Grease, say a high school or community theatre, how many versions are there to license? I know of the original which includes "All Choked Up", "Alone at a Drive In Movie" etc. This is the same version that keeps the TBirds as The Burger Palace Boys.

But I've seen companies, long before Max and Laura, both amatuer and professional that cut the old songs and replace them with the more familiar - ie: Grease, Sandy, Hopelessly Devoted, YTOTIW etc etc. The boys are the TBirds and so on and so forth.

My question is - are there two versions? Can you choose to purchase these songs for your show (for example: I know that Beautiful City is not included in 'Godspell' but must be bought specifically) or are all these companies doing it illegally...which I doubt.


If anyone could help out, I'd appreciate it.

[overthemoonboy]

Posted: 11/15/07 at 2:02am

Legally, there is no version that includes the movie songs. There is only the original version and the modified school version. Both are available from Samuel French.

[timote316]

Posted: 11/15/07 at 2:24am

If I'm not mistaken, you can purchase the songs seperately, but they are rather pricey. That said, chances are, companies that add them in are doing so illegally.

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 11/15/07 at 8:23am

Yes, there is no version that includes the movie songs. They must be purchased from their rights holders for a rather large sum. You have to remember you'd be going through the music industry and not Samuel French, since SF doesn't own them.

Any amateur version of the show with the movie songs is indeed adding them illegally (most likely). A national tour went out with the movie songs a number of years ago, and they're now used in the newest version of Grease on Broadway. They should have been used for the Tommy Tune version, but he wasn't allowed, so he pretty much rewrote the damn thing as a kick in the ass to everyone involved.

Samuel French licenses two versions of the show - the original (which has been incredibly sanitized through the years) and the school version (which is not only sanitized by desensitized).