Grease is a 1971 musical

Musical theatre

Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

 by Jim Jacobs

Jim Jacobs

Jim Jacobs is an American composer, lyricist, and writer for the theatre. He is known for writing the book, lyrics and music, with Warren Casey, for the stage and film musical Grease.-Career:...

 and Warren Casey

Warren Casey

Warren Casey was an American theatre composer, lyricist, writer, and actor. He is best known for being the writer and composer, with Jim Jacobs of the stage and film musical Grease.-Career:...

. The musical

Musical theatre

Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

 is named for the 1950s United States working-class

Working class

Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...

 youth subculture

Youth subculture

A youth subculture is a youth-based subculture with distinct styles, behaviors, and interests. Youth subcultures offer participants an identity outside of that ascribed by social institutions such as family, work, home and school...

 known as the greasers. The musical, set in 1959 at fictional Rydell High School (loosely based on William Howard Taft School

William Howard Taft High School (Chicago)

William Howard Taft High School is a high school located at 6530 West Bryn Mawr Avenue in Chicago, Illinois, in the Norwood Park neighborhood. It is run by the Chicago Public Schools . It is perhaps most famous as being the high school attended by Jim Jacobs, the writer of Grease. Jacobs used Taft...

), follows ten working-class teenagers as they navigate the complexities of love, cars, and drive-ins. The score attempts to recreate the sounds of early rock and roll. In its record-breaking original Broadway production, Grease was a raunchy, raw, aggressive, vulgar show that since has been sanitized and tamed down by subsequent productions.