So Grease: Live hit Fox last night, and blew away all the ratings for live theatrical events. I'm not surprised -- while I'm not a huge fan of Grease, that production had a great cast, technical wizardry, and one big secret weapon: A live audience.

Grease didn't totally eliminate the awkwardness of having a stage show filmed live, but it was a far sight more relaxed and less clunky-feeling than NBC's live musicals, which have seemed stilted and dated. Having an audience highlighted the sheer theatricality of it all, rather than try and ignore it, and it made it easier to accept the theatricality of it for me.

Playbill has a list of 15 Things Grease: Live did right, and it's worth a look. I completely agree with a few of them, including shout-outs to David Korins' set design and William Ivey Long's costumes. The opening sequence walking through all the set pieces and backstage areas was exhilarating, setting the energy and world of the show, while Long's costumes were dazzling throughout -- and when they worked together, like in the "Freddy My Love" number, it really was some amazing theatrical magic.

Did you catch the show? What do think they got right? What made you cringe?

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We can only assume that the sound was good as there are no negative comments ;-) So how did it sound?

It actually sounded really really good. The mix had "live" issues at certain points -- Jessie J's mic technique meant there were a few lines that were muffled as she held the mic to her side during the opening number. (Which she quickly corrected and brought it right back into position.) And there was a live mixing choice or two -- trombones featured visually in that opening number, but not really brought out in the mix -- but overall it was great. The singers were fantastic and mic'd clear enough that I kept looking to see how they did it. So yeah, it was good! :-)

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