Hamilton director Thomas Kail and Dancing with the Stars’ Alex Rudzinski will helm the Fox live broadcast of Grease. As previously reported, the project will star Gigi’s Vanessa Hudgens as Rizzo and Julianne Hough as Sandy. The Rydell High crew will hit the small screen on January 31, 2016.
Kail, a Tony nominee for In the Heights, will handle the staging, while Rudzinski will tackle the technical elements of the telecast. Marc Platt, who is no stranger to producing musicals on the Great White Way, will serve as executive producer for the Fox and Paramount Television project. Additional casting will be announced at a later date.
The popular musical, which features a score and book by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey, follows teenagers in love during the soda shop culture of the 1950s. The show premiered on Broadway in 1972 and has been revived on Broadway twice since. The 1978 film adaptation starred John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John and Stockard Channing.