‘Grease’ Out,’ Guys and Dolls’ In: Musical Changes Direction
From a 50s high school to gambling Manhattan and Havana, Cuba the Hammonton High School play directing staff has made the bold choice to change the school musical from Grease to Guys and Dolls. The decision to change the play came from the difficulties attaining the rights to perform the Grease.
Obtaining rights for different plays depends on the company that has the rights to it such as Musical Theatre International that owns Guys and Dolls or Samuel French that holds the rights to Grease.
Ms. Carrafiello, the director of the school play, explained how this works.
“Every company that holds rights requires different things,” she said. “The company that holds Guys and Dolls only requires me to fill out an application.”
Because Grease is such a popular show, it takes longer to get the rights.
“Samuel French holds the rights to Grease,” Carrafiello continued. “Apparently Grease is a very sought after show and I did not realize the process to even obtain the rights were over two months long because they want to know how many seat you have in the auditorium, there’s a whole bunch of stuff that they require before they’ll even consider it.”
The availability of the rights also depends on the popularity of the play because companies can only allow a certain amount of licences to be given out. Therefore if a company reaches its threshold they can no longer provide the rights to other productions of the same show.
Guys and Dolls is a play about a crap game manager struggling to find a new life for his notorious game. Enter another fellow gambler, a puritanical missionary girl, and a bet and the show sets its course as classic romantic comedy with amazing numbers and music. The play is set for March 8th, 10th, and 11th with the application process taking so long the decision to change the play was required to start rehearsals in order to be ready for the production.
“I was just trying to think about shows that hadn’t been done in Hammonton in awhile that are great fun shows and Guys and Dolls kind of smacked me in the face,” Carrafiello comments about how she came to choose the show ,“Knowing the students that habitually do the play every year, I was thinking that would be a great show”
Student reaction varied but remained optimistic for the show and its cast.
”I think the knowing the cast no matter what show we do will be great,” said junior Grace Haley.
“I was excited to do Grease but then it was changed to Guys and Dolls”, said junior Jackie Dursch.”I love play in general, no matter what show”