Warwick Academy students brought the much beloved musical Grease to life, transporting audiences back to 1959 with catchy tunes, poodle skirts, leather jackets and the iconic characters of Rydell High.

The production followed “a group of working-class teenagers as they navigate the complexities of peer pressure, education, personal core values and love”. Ticket holders, along with the more than 100 people involved in bringing the performances to life, gave the show a resounding thumbs-up.

For Zion Mills, Chloé Samuels, and Ailie Waddington, the production was an opportunity to build on their stage experience. All three 16-year-olds aspire to study acting after high school.

Ailie discovered he had a passion for acting in primary school after watching a Year 6 production of Treasure Island.

“I thought it was the coolest thing in the world. Looking back, it was probably really poorly done – I remember the peg leg was made out of Sellotape and painted brown,” he laughed.

In Year 5 he had the opportunity to take the stage and has been performing ever since. With Jack McDonnell he was the show’s assistant director and took on two roles onstage: Roger, also known as Rump, a “clown who enjoys winding people up”, and the Teen Angel.

“I don't think many people knew the characters in Grease beyond Danny and Sandy and Rizzo,” he said.

“I was Kenickie in the part of Grease that we did in Thank You for the Musicals in 2022 and I sang Greased Lightnin’. It was a lot of fun; I loved it. But when I read the script I was like, ‘Roger’s way funnier.’”

Ailie also liked that, as Teen Angel, he would “get to sing Beauty School Dropout”, which was “really cool, too”.

His audition before Sarah Bowers, Warwick Academy’s head of faculty: creative and technical arts; Mr McDonnell, the head of drama; and Conrad Roach, the lead teacher of music, was a bit “scary”.

“Sometimes you forget the lyrics and you panic, but as long as you stare at the back of the room, you're kind of OK. You know that they're not judging you or anything like that,” he said.

The musical demanded real commitment. Auditions were held at the end of the school year, with students given the script to study over the summer holidays.

Once school resumed in September, the cast began practising on Tuesdays and Thursdays of each week. The show ran from November 28 to 30 with a matinee and an evening performance on the final day.

Zion played the lead character Danny Zuko, a “hot-rodding” member of the T-Birds gang, whose romance with Sandy Dumbrowski – “the sweet new girl in town” – is the heart of the story.

He took part in his first school play two years ago and performed in Magic of the Musicals 2, a production put on by the Gilbert & Sullivan Society in October.

“It’s my mom's favourite musical and she made me watch it over and over again,” he said of Grease.

“I knew it was a classic so I pretty much had to [stay true to the character] to the best of my ability.”

Upon leaving Warwick, his goal is to continue acting – onstage and in films. Ultimately, he would like to “also become a director and film-maker”.

Chloé played Betty Rizzo, the leader of the Pink Ladies gang. Although the 1978 film starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John was a favourite of her mother’s she did not watch it until after she had auditioned for the Warwick Academy musical.

“My mom said that she enjoyed it in her childhood and I found Rizzo to be a very funny character,” she said.

She intends to study acting in university and hopes to be in films one day. Magic of the Musicals was where she got her start in 2017. Then came Gilbert & Sullivan productions of The Wizard of Oz and Annie, school plays and Magic of the Musicals 2.

“It's always nerve-racking,” she said of performing live. “But doing it a lot of times makes it better.”

As for finding the time amid her studies, Chloé admitted that her mom was “a big help”.

“But because I have such a passion for it, it’s not really like a chore,” she said. “I enjoy doing that with my schoolwork any way, so I find the time.”