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- Neil Middlemiss
Didi spoke to Home Theater Forum about the live production of Grease, her connection to her Grease co-stars, and the lasting impact of the 1978 film.
Grease Live! is available on DVD from Paramount Home Entertainment, and is available on all major digital retailers.
HTF: I was not fortunate enough to catch the live broadcast of the show, but I did get to watch the DVD. I haven't seen Grease since the '78 film, but I had a blast. There was just so much energy in that live production.
Didi Conn: Oh, it was remarkable. It really was remarkable. They married the movie and the original Broadway musical and just had the most talented dancers and rock stars. The whole concept of doing it this way, where you have live audiences watching what's going on, and then giving the home audiences a peek at all the activity during the commercials [chuckles], it got everybody so excited. It was really fun for everyone.
HTF: And I know you must feed from that energy in Broadway or other stage productions. You don't get that same feedback and immediacy when you're on a film set, save for perhaps, spontaneous applause from the production crew. So how important or valuable is that in creating a dynamic live production like Grease?
Didi Conn: I think it was the essential and secret ingredient because Grease is really about firsts - first love, first car, for Frenchy, first career disappointment [laughter]. Firsts have that kind of exuberant energy of not knowing what's happening and being surprised, and I think the most important ingredient of what makes Grease so accessible is that it's so alive and so present. People are experiencing these feelings that they've never experienced before, so to bring the audience into that same kind of experiences was a brilliant, brilliant concept by the director, Thomas Kail. His collaboration with the camera director, Alex Rudzinski, was unreal. Alex was editing on 20 cameras right there in the moment, and it was all choreographed, all rehearsed for only a week with the cameras. It was just remarkable.
HTF: That surprises me that there was such a short amount of time for that kind of rehearsal, but it was a terrific production, especially with so many moving pieces on live television. That's quite an accomplishment.
Didi Conn: The actors rehearsed four weeks at a rehearsal studio, and by the end of that they were doing full run-throughs, so director Kail made sure the actors were comfortable, were past the point of-- if you want to make the analogy to a Broadway show, they were into previews. They loved doing it. However, they were doing it in the rehearsal studio, so the next step was going on to the sound stages at Warner Brothers and a whole week was just spent without cameras. Now, the camera operators and Alex, they were all watching, but it was really for the actors to get accustomed to the sets and being on the set with the props and what the lighting was. So then the camera people really were adapting to what they were seeing, and then a whole week was just cameras all day long, a good 10, 12 hours just doing the scenes, and figuring out the camera shots, and rehearsing it over and over and over and over. That week was a long week, which is kind of like when you're doing a Broadway show. It was all planned to come together on the Thursday before the [live broadcast on] Sunday, where we did a slow run-through at four o'clock – the exact same time it was going to be shot live on Sunday - for friends and family. And then we did it again Friday. I think we did it twice on Friday, and then again Saturday, and then woke up Sunday morning to pouring rain [laughter], which had been predicted so we had been rehearsing with umbrellas for the opening and the end. But having audience lining the outside - and it was really thrilling to get that kind of excitement and applause - it perked everybody up, and brought everything to another level. It was really a thrill to be a part of.
HTF: It was an ambitious production. Live productions like this, or musical productions live on television, they're experiencing a bit of a resurgence following NBC's Sound of Music. I thought Grease was an inspired choice. But what do you think it is about Grease? There are productions of Grease around the world almost every year in some form or fashion - what do you think it is about Grease that seems to resonate with people still today?
Didi Conn: It's very interesting. I [hadn't really] thought about that but I think that we did Grease before there were music videos. There's something about the story being so accessible and so real. The love that John (Travolta) and Olivia (Newton-John) felt for each other - and that we all felt for each other - is real. We still feel for each other that way, and there's something about that that I think attracted audiences - that and the music and dancing - but it was all just out of good friendship.
I think when something is real, audiences respond in a way that it just gets passed on from generation to generation. Even though Grease has a lot of very kind of risqué things about it, when you see five- and six-year-olds coming up to you and telling you things that must have gone over their heads [laughter]. People have told me that as they get older, they see things in the movie they had never seen before. People do the production because they want to be a part of it. They want to be a part of that kind of close friendships, I think.
HTF: In an opinion piece for CNN* on your son's autism, you wrote that you learned that "early intervention with the appropriate therapy, and a supportive family, and a loving community will help your child reach his or her potential, and that's the most important thing. We all want our children to be the best they can be. One of the blessings of having an autistic child is that you notice every little achievement, and it becomes cause for celebration." I wanted to ask you about that. My son is going to be four in May. He has Down syndrome, and your CNN piece resonated with me incredibly loudly, because you are right, you do want to do everything you possibly can to get all the interventions (support and therapy) you can, so they have the best chance later in life. But what really struck me was the comment on “noticing every little achievement” - things that he has to fight much harder to do than children his age. You celebrate them with such vitality and it gives me joy every time I get to celebrate something with him no matter how small. I wanted to ask you, when I look around at film, television, and especially in children's book, I don't see my son. And I wonder, that under-representation of children with disabilities and other challenges, what do you think that can be done to address that? How do you think we can get better representation?
Didi Conn: First of all, let me just say thank you for sharing this about your son. It's very hard to get over the shock that there's something “wrong” or there's something “different”. The sooner you can get over that and see all the blessings - the sweetness, the softness, the gentleness, the little things that you never would notice - because your friends' kids learning how to drive, and they're holding hands and having girlfriends, things that my son who's 23 now isn't doing, if you are able to focus on what they can do. Now, I have some exciting news to tell you. For ten years, I have had a project that has a non-verbal autistic child in it, and I'm now making a pilot for Amazon.
HTF: Oh, wonderful
Didi Conn: Every episode is a mini-musical. It's called Didi Lightful, and it's about this Lightful family. Father's a veterinarian, and her little neighbor - his name is JT - he has autism. I had it at Disney for a while, and we had PBS was considering it, but having a child with a disability was something that they were interested in maybe an episode, but not a series regular. I will get back in touch with you when Amazon puts it on, and they need people to vote and say, "Yes, we need more of this [laughter]".
HTF: I will vote for that, absolutely. Thank you very much.
Didi Conn: Thanks so much, Neil.
*You can read Didi’s CNN opinion piece on her son’s autism here: http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/02/conn.autism/
