Kathleen Marshall is doing something no theater director has ever done.

She's staging a Broadway show, a revival of the musical "Grease," with lead actors chosen for her by TV viewers as part of a tie-in with a reality show.


The risk is obvious. However wise and insightful the people who vote for contestants on reality-television shows are, they are not as attuned as an experienced director to the needs of a Broadway production.

Nevertheless, Marshall, in an interview the other day, was upbeat about how things have been going in rehearsal. The show begins previews Tuesday at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre for an Aug. 19 opening.

"They're doing great," she said of Max Crumm and Laura Osnes, the young performers who won the competition to play bad-boy Danny and good-girl Sandy in the spoof of 1950s teen life.

"They have fantastic chemistry," she added. "Going through the [TV] show together, they're like war buddies. They like each other. I think it helps [their onstage relationship] that they went through this private history together."

Everyone knows "Grease," one of the most consistently popular American musicals. It ran for eight years after opening on Broadway in 1972, and a 1994 revival ran for almost four years. The 1978 John Travolta film version was also a hit.

Still one more revival normally wouldn't create much of a stir, but this uniquely conceived production arrives with several off-stage subplots.

For Marshall, there's a lot riding on a show that comes at a pivotal time in her career.

The younger sister of Rob Marshall, who directed the film version of "Chicago," she made the leap from choreographing to directing in 2003 with a well-received revival of "Wonderful Town." She followed that up last year with "The Pajama Game," which wowed critics and audiences and won a Tony Award.

That catapulted Marshall to the front rank of directors of musicals, a rare place for women, whose most notable occupant is Susan Stroman. (There are producers who still think of directing as a take-charge, guy thing.)

Her decision to participate in the "Grease" project raised some eyebrows. It involved not only staging the show but appearing on the reality program "Grease: You're the One That I Want!" as one of three judges who thinned the field of competitors.

Marshall indicated she could have done without the TV face time. "It was very odd for me," she said. "I'm usually a behind-the-scenes gal."

It's hard to overstate the contempt with which many theater people regarded the idea of casting a show by popular vote. That the TV program turned out to be tacky, contrived, overwrought and a big bore confirmed their expectations.

Marshall managed to come through it with her dignity intact. The 44-year-old director registered as a thoughtful, serious professional. She treated the eager hopefuls with respect, declining to make them the butt of jokes in standard reality-TV fashion.

Her involvement in the proceedings is unlikely to diminish her Broadway standing. She's too well regarded for that to happen.

The effect of how "Grease" turns out is another story. She has reached a certain niche, but Broadway is a business with a short memory. A hit show makes a hot director hotter; a flop drops him or her back into the pack.

Marshall doesn't see the production as a gimmick, a mere creature of TV promotion.

She said this "Grease" is the kind of musical that's happening now, with hits like "Spring Awakening" and "A Chorus Line" featuring young performers with little or no Broadway experience.

"I think it's very exciting," she said. "About two-thirds of our cast has never done a Broadway show before. It's natural; the characters are young. I just cast the best people for the roles." (In the 1994 revival, one of the high-school kids was played by 32-year-old Rosie O'Donnell.)

Meanwhile, "Grease" has an advance sale of more than $14 million, according to a spokesman for the show. That's a huge figure, almost unheard of for a show without big names. Although, maybe, because of TV, Crumm and Osnes are big names to a segment of the population.

If the show prospers after it opens, continuing to sell tickets, producers, no matter how contemptuous they have been of the selling of "Grease," might take a longer look at its marketing strategy.

Summing up her reaction to the whole thing, Marshall said, "It's been a fun thing to do. It's involved the audience, and 'Grease' is the kind of show to do it with."

As for regrets about not having the right to cast the leads: "I agreed to be involved in the whole process, so I can't complain about it. You don't go shopping at Tiffany's and then object that the prices are too high."