The Way Off Broadway Theater Co, Big Sky High School’s theater department, performed the musical Grease from Thursday to Sunday at the end of March.
The cast had a wide variety of 45 new and returning members of the Big Sky Drama department, and one of those newcomers was Ari Manthie as Kenickie Murdoch.
This is Manthie’s first musical for Big Sky, but he has been in other productions, such as Big Sky Cabaret in January and MCing for the Cafe Chocolat Dessert Show in February.
After working on these projects with Big Sky’s theater department, Manthie learned that Grease was being put on, and decided to join.
“Grease is a pretty iconic name, one of the most popular musicals of all time, it’s very upbeat and has a lot of wiggle room to play with the characters a bit,” Manthie said. In a recent interview, Manthie talked about the process of auditions, and how he ended up with the role of Kenickie.
“On the day of auditions, we filled out a sheet where we put the top three characters we wanted to play. If someone else was playing our first choice, we would get the second choice, and so on,” Manthie explained. “I wrote Kenickie as my first choice, but I put Danny and Sonny as my other choices. I’m very glad I got to play Kenickie, but I would’ve played someone else if I was assigned to it.”
He also spoke on how he worked the character of Kenickie, and how he wanted to portray him, slowly building the character in his head over many rehearsals. In most renditions of Grease, Kenickie is portrayed as a tough, disrespectful kid, and Ari took a similar approach to his version.
“I feel like I did really well as Kenickie, and I felt I embodied his tough and abrasive personality and Brooklyn accent. Playing Kenickie, or really any of the Burger Palace Boys, you have to understand that you’re a teenager from the 50s, and you’re not necessarily an upstanding member of society,” Manthie said. “You kinda gotta lean into the raunchier aspect of it, with a rude tude and not caring what anyone else has to say about it.”
Manthie went on to say he loves the Big Sky Theater department, and says that the entire crew works hard to put together a great show. He says Big Sky’s version of Grease was very energetic and stressful at times, but the show must go on.
“I feel like we have a lot of very dedicated seniors who care a lot about the show, and we have a very welcoming environment with no unnecessary drama between us,” Manthie said. “We can power through the stress and the acrobatics of getting a show like this done.”
