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| Photo taken by: Rachel Schmid |
Irvine Valley College’s production of the famous musical “Grease” previewed to a full house Thursday night at the IVC Performing Arts Center Main Stage. As expected, the stage shined with greased hair, sparkly outfits and bright talent.
“Tonight was probably the best preview night we could’ve had,” said Lance Smith, who played the lead role of Danny. “We were all on our game, and I think the audience just really raised the energy.”
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| Rachel Schmid |
The entire cast performed exceptionally well through all the major areas of a musical: in their acting, choreography, and singing. But it was through the familiar musical numbers that the emotions of the actors were really shown.
After each musical performance, the crowd kept the energy high with hearty sets of applause.
Mother and daughter Stephanie and Erica Bell were among those enthusiastically clapping in the audience.
“I thought it was adorable and a great production. They did a really great job,” Stephanie Bell said.
Both agreed that Andrew Guzman who played the role of Doody, had a particularly superb performance in his song: “Those Magic Changes.”
The show didn’t hold anything back, including the sexual innuendoes and dirty dancing. There were plenty of make-out sessions, skirts flirtatiously being lifted, breast grabbing, and girls suggestively shaking their chests in the faces of desirous men.
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| Rachel Schmid |
This kept the play lighthearted and made for some humorous moments.
The romantic scenes between Danny and the leading lady Sandy, played by Elizabeth Rodriguez, were appropriately awkward until the electrifying ending when the characters join for the famous song, “You’re the One That I Want.”
Jeremy Bell understood that he might see some mishaps from the actors since it was the preview night, but he was impressed that he didn’t.
“I thought it was a very solid performance for a preview night,” Bell stated. “They did really well. If they made any screw-ups, it wasn’t apparent to me.”
The border of the stage included a 1950's jukebox theme, which served as a clever prop to keep the audience in tune with the songs being played by illuminating the song titles.
The creativity of the props continued to surprise the audience especially when Michael Renney who played Kenickie, drove onto center stage in a car.
This was Tyler Bictory’s second time seeing the musical “Grease” on the big stage, and he was thoroughly impressed with IVC’s production.
“It was one of the best performances I’ve seen,” Bictory said. “They really went all out with all the scenery. It was pretty amazing how the lighting and the whole set pieced together so well.”
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| Rachel Schmid |
“Grease” plays Nov. 2, 3, 8, 9, and 10 at 8 p.m., and Nov. 4 and 11 at 2 p.m.
Tickets are selling out quickly, so buy yours at https://www.vendini.com/zend/service/index/selectperformance/ faa7d1d3a4a79ed1a7754e87228f642e / 3a
