NOTE: This Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
When deciding to cover the new Grease prequel series, Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies, Justin Tranter and Jamal Sims were the two names I recognised among a sea of largely new up-and-comers in the cast. Tranter is the show’s executive music producer and one of the main songwriters, while Sims is the choreographer and director of the show’s musical numbers. Through their combined labour, the pair have crafted dozens of new songs and dances jam-packed into a single season.
Long before working on Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies, Justin Tranter was the lead singer/songwriter of Semi Precious Weapons, a band whom I saw open for Lady Gaga over a decade ago and even met at a meet-and-greet. Upon revealing this little bit of back story to Tranter, they are delighted.
Justin: What city did I meet you in?
LadyJenevia: It was in San Jose, at the HP Pavilion, but I don’t think it’s called that anymore.
Justin: I remember that! I remember that night vividly because Gaga kept saying “I love you, San Diego!” the whole show, and we were not in San Diego.
LadyJenevia: I tried to find the photo but I think it’s in an old email or on a Myspace I don’t know how to log into.
Jamal Sims is known to myself and every other fan of RuPaul’s Drag Race for his numerous appearances on the show as a guest choreographer. His skills as a choreographer are as notable as his cheerful disposition and even temperament.
As an impassioned fan of Grease 2, I was eager to ask Sims about Patricia Birch.
LadyJenevia: Jamal, with this being a prequel series, did you pull anything from Patricia Birch’s choreographic language to connect this series to the Grease films and stage musical, all of which she choreographed? She also directed the cinematic masterpiece, Grease 2.
Jamal: Absolutely, of course I did! I felt like I was a student of Patricia Birch. Just watching both of the films and being a fan of both of them, because I knew every number, it was already implanted in my body. When the choreography would come up, I would say, “Oh this is Patricia.” I would know what her sensibility was. Really, this is like a big love-letter to her from me because she did such beautiful work.
LadyJenevia: Justin, can you share a bit about how period-accurate versus anachronistic the show’s music was intended to be? Also, who wrote the lyric “Those communist sluts showing people their butts”? That was by far my favourite lyric of the first five episodes.
Justin: To answer the first question, my blueprint was the original Grease [film], which was very much a late-1970’s take of the 1950’s. It was a very current view of the 1950’s. Whether you had a Gibb writing ‘Grease is the word’ or you had Olivia Newton-John’s main songwriter coming in to write songs for it. That was the blueprint of… ‘Yes, 1950s-nostalgia has to be so important and I need to do my deep, deep homework on different inspirations from the 1950s, but do not be afraid of current sounds’ because the original wasn’t afraid of current sounds so I shouldn’t be either.
And then, “communist sluts showing people their butts”, I co-wrote the songs with lots of amazing people but I am the main lyricist. Lyrics are my favourite part of all music. Most of the lyrics you’re hearing came from [my] terrifying brain.
LadyJenevia: Jamal, how precise is the process of choosing camera angles for these musical numbers? Is it extremely precise or do you shoot for longer sequences so there there’s a little more room to play when editing them all together?
Jamal: We were extremely precise because we didn’t have a lot of time to shoot. We were doing ten musicals. Each episode felt like a real musical, there were four numbers, so we had to be precise and we had to plan shots for each sequence. We really wanted to because, like West Side Story, we wanted to be able to hold up against those kinds of things. We planned.
Justin: They killed it. I had no part in it so I can just say as an outsider, they killed it. It was amazing to watch.
LadyJenevia: It was incredible just how many musical numbers were fit into each episode so I really don’t know how you got all of that done.
Justin: 30 original songs, more than any TV show in history.
LadyJenevia: That needs to be the headline of marketing the show!
Jamal: Can I ask you a question? What’s your favourite song in Grease 2?
LadyJenevia: I love [“Score Tonight”] but I also love “Reproduction” because the idea of a formerly closeted Hollywood heartthrob from the 1950s [Tab Hunter] singing during the 1980s, during the AIDS crisis, teaching sex education, there’s all of this unintended weight behind that number. It’s also just hilarious because America in general has a weird thing about sex education for kids in public schools or just schools in general. [I love] both of those songs but for very different reasons.
Jamal: That’s right.
Justin: I love that.
LadyJenevia: Congratulations on the show, and thank you so much for doing such fabulous work. I was gonna be a tough critic, I was prepared to be harsh, because I love [Grease 2] so much but [Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies] was really fun to watch.
Jamal: Thank you.
Justin: We’re already imagining things for season 2 and there are some tributes brewing in our brains that pertain to Grease 2.
LadyJenevia: Don’t dangle that carrot in front of me!
Justin: Tell all your friends to watch so we get a season 2!
Watch Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies on April 6 on Paramount+.
Watch the full interviews with the cast/crew of Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies here:
Grease: Rise of The Pink Ladies premieres on April 6 exclusively on Paramount+