Grease: You're the One That I Want!— Debut

Overview

Grease: You're the One That I Want! was an NBC reality television series designed to cast the lead roles of Sandy Dumbrowski and Danny Zuko in a $10 million Broadway revival of the musical Grease to be directed and choreographed by two-time Tony Award-winner Kathleen Marshall. The Broadway production began previews at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre on July 24, 2007, and officially opened on August 19. The TV show, from the producers of Dancing With the Stars, was patterned after an original format created by Andrew Lloyd Webber for the BBC series How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?, which selected the lead in the successful 2005 West End revival of The Sound of Music. The show's title was taken from the song "You're the One That I Want" from the 1978 screen adaptation of Grease. Although the song was not part of the original Broadway production, the revival will add the songs written for the film to those written for the original Broadway production. The program generated so much interest in the upcoming Broadway revival that, as The New York Post reported on April 4, 2007, ticket sales had topped $9 million, although the TV show was a "ratings loser".