When the 1959-set musical “Grease” debuted in a classically gritty Off Loop theater in 1971, it marked the birth of what would become (pre-”Phantom of the Opera”) the longest-running musical on Broadway.
The show’s creators Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey (they co-wrote the music, lyrics and books) based their scrappy, gleefully raunchy high school musical on their own experiences as high schoolers on Chicago’s North Side.
