# "Grease" with Taylor Hicks: I'm disgusted. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 21, 2010, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grease-with-taylor-hicks-im-disgusted/529879 "2010-02-21T16:54:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Misnomer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/misnomer/32/14897_2.png) [@Misnomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Misnomer)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2010, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grease-with-taylor-hicks-im-disgusted/529879/1 "2010-02-21T16:54:59Z")
Has anyone else seen the touring company of _Grease_ that “features” Taylor Hicks as Teen Angel? My friend and I saw it at the [National Theatre](http://www.nationaltheatre.org/) last night. The show was mostly good, but Hicks’s Teen Angel pretty much sucked. It was just one song, though, and afterwards we focused on the rest of the production. And then we were sucker-punched: after the curtain calls ended, Hicks came out with guitar and harmonica and played a song from his new album! I didn’t have any opinion of Hicks before last night, but now I deeply dislike him. I’ve lost a little respect for the National Theatre, too. I have a hard time expressing just how wrong that was, but luckily [a July 2009 review](http://www.broadstreetreview.com/index.php/main/article/grease_at_the_academy_of_music/) (which my friend Googled after our show) sums it up nicely. :mad: ---
**Author:** ![Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/bc8723/32.png) [@Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unauthorized_Cinnamon)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2010, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grease-with-taylor-hicks-im-disgusted/529879/2 "2010-02-21T17:57:54Z")
Yup. \*Grease \*was a pretty weak show to begin with, and it hasn’t aged well, IMHO. I thought the best part was the take on “Magic Changes.” Otherwise, the whole show was pretty ho-hum, Teen (?!) Angel included. Then the thing at the end was equal parts weird, pathetic, and annoying. It reeked of desperation, and I thought it was rather insulting to the theater audience to include what was really a commercial for the guy’s CD at the end. It didn’t help that it was so loud our ears were practically bleeding. I’m expecting \*Wicked \*to make up for all of that though! ---
**Author:** ![sulamith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f08c70/32.png) [@sulamith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sulamith)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2010, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grease-with-taylor-hicks-im-disgusted/529879/3 "2010-02-21T17:59:53Z")
This kind of thing royally cheeses me off. I don’t need to be hit over the head with a marketing 2x4, and yeah, even if I might have had some interest in the guy as a performer, this would make me avoid him just on the principle of the thing. ---
**Author:** ![Misnomer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/misnomer/32/14897_2.png) [@Misnomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Misnomer)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2010, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grease-with-taylor-hicks-im-disgusted/529879/4 "2010-02-22T05:04:36Z")
> [@Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](#): > > I thought it was rather insulting to the theater audience to include what was really a commercial for the guy’s CD at the end. Yes! That’s exactly what it was. And it turned the whole damn _production_ into a commercial. I disagree that the show was always weak, but I was disappointed with the three main characters (Danny\*, Sandy, and Rizzo) last night: that said, I still would have been able to walk away happy if I hadn’t been held hostage for 4 minutes. I wanted to walk out, and suggested it to my friend, but she talked me into staying – then told me later that she regretted it, and that we should have walked out. I’m considering going to the National in a couple of months to see Harvey Fierstein in _Fiddler on the Roof_, and I have half a mind to call the theater and ask whether Harvey has a new album to promote. What I couldn’t get over was the fact that the run ended today (on Sunday), yet neither my friend nor I had heard anything about the Taylor Hicks “surprise” ending. I figured that sort of bs would have been all over the web! \*The guy who played Danny last night also played Bob Gaudio in the company of _Jersey Boys_ that I saw at the National last fall. I liked him as Gaudio, but he seemed kind of flat as Danny. ---
**Author:** ![statsman1982](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e79b87/32.png) [@statsman1982](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/statsman1982)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2010, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grease-with-taylor-hicks-im-disgusted/529879/5 "2010-02-22T07:12:01Z")
Whoever approved Hicks’ role in that musical should be put in a burlap sack and pounded with hammers. The linked review really set me off. One of the characters seriously breaks character and says “Hey, I voted for you”?! Not cool. BTW, I don’t particularly like _Grease_, or musical theater. But I’m big on keeping the integrity of artistic work. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2010, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grease-with-taylor-hicks-im-disgusted/529879/6 "2010-02-22T07:21:07Z")
I always thought Beauty School Dropout was one of the weakest songs. Whenever Grease comes on TV, it’s always the time for me to stop and get a snack.