By Eyal Solomon….
You’ll never watch Grease the same way again.
The setup is simple enough: same characters, same songs, same Rydell High — only now it’s 2025 and no one’s slicking back their hair. They’re vaping. Constantly.
Grease, the 1978 movie featuring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John (based on the 1971 musical) was supposed to depict high school life in southern California in the fifties, when everybody played by the Golden Rules, a time when a teenage summer fling was scandalous enough to warrant a full musical number.
By the 70s those 50s traditions became laughable; in today’s woke world they just seem weird, if not cringe. Grease, after all, is practically a master class in toxic masculinity. And on top of that, how about the total lack of diversity in the movie? Plenty of diversity, fluidity, frolicking and scissoring in this version, as you can guess. And for some reason, both Danny and Sandi end up in leather.
And it’s not just the norms of the time–I mean, you gotta admit, some of the movie’s production choices were real head-scratchers (Australia? Casting an actress in her mid thirties?) Vape! skewers every one of them without mercy. Because it’s Grease. It was meant to be parodized.
But Vape! goes ten steps further by placing a 48-year old mirror in front of today’s hyper-connected, hyper-woke and hyper-sexed Gen-Z, their world of hookups, content creators, and social clout. “Beauty School Dropout” becomes a riff on influencer burnout. Fame is the new prom crown.
But don’t expect any seriousness. The play, cleverly written by Catie Hogan, is goofy and camp as it gets from start to finish, leaving the audience almost no time to come up for air.
While the set is minimal – a projection screen and a few props – the vocal performances are anything but. Vape! repurposes Grease’s songs with gleefully twisted lyrics. Notable among the leads are Scott Silagy as Danny, Lara Strong as Sandy, and Slee as Rizzo, with solid turns from the rest of the cast.
Vape! is funny and clever with strong musical performances. I enjoyed it.
Vape! The Grease Parody is currently playing Off-Broadway at Theater 555 (555 W 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036) in New York City. The show is running a limited engagement from October 30, 2025, to January 4, 2026. Official opening was November 3, 2025.
