The Fine Art Of Putting On A Greystones Musical

Former T-Bird Isaac Carcone…

s part of his Greystones Community College transition year work experience, budding reporter Isaac Carcone did three fine reports for your snoreaway Guide.

We’ll have the lad’s piece on Spanish exchange students plus the life and crimes of the Greystones teen today over the coming weeks.

For now though, Isaac kicks off his rollicking reportage with an insider’s look at his school’s recent production of the hit stage musical Grease, our boy being typecast as one of the leather-clad, authority-hating, finger-snapping, close-harmony-singing T-Birds gang.

Over to Isaac…

On April 2nd, 2025, Greystones Community College performed their first ever Transition Year Musical, and it was an experience that none of us will soon forget.

The crowd-pleasing show was the classic Grease, but there was a whole separate show that began backstage 7 months earlier.

It was the start of the school year and a special one at that because for a bunch of us, it was Transition Year. You hear about this school year all the time from the moment you start secondary school and now, suddenly, it was here.

About a month in, I start seeing posters around the school talking about a musical. At first, I thought to myself that there is no way I am going to do that, I have already done my fair share of performances with the school in choir. But after one or two friends signed up, the pull factor increased, and I eventually gave in…

We started with nearly nothing. An old prefab room was our dance floor for the first few months.

Some people stay, some people join, and some people go. To top it all off some of the stiffest dancing you will ever see is put on display.

The notorious T-Birds…

A lot of people who took part in big roles in the musical had never performed on stage before, at least not to this extent.

Around January we got our scripts, and a lot of characters were decided. Mainly the T-Birds. All the lads realised at this moment the workload we had cutout for us. I did not join the musical for a speaking role and ended up getting a main part, which at first, I was not happy about, but like many in the group, I grew into the role.

Now once everyone got their roles scenes start to form. Lines get cut and added in, facial expressions are perfected. The musical really starts to come to life even as we have a few setbacks, with lines being learned and relearned, and dances having to be, well, redanced, but that was always going to be the process with any show.

Towards the end of March, we all got the one thing we were waiting for. Our costumes. From the jumpsuits to the long dresses everyone really started to enjoy themselves and we all began to believe in the production.

More importantly, we also believed in making ourselves look like a bunch of eejits. Putting on a show is all about commitment.

However, it only really started to feel real when we saw the stage for the first time. Between the lights and mics, it all came into reality. We had a matinee in the afternoon in front of the Greystones Community National School students, so we could get used to the stage as well as the crowd, and then it was time for the real show to begin.

With the hair slicked back and the leather jackets on, the lights dimmed, and it was showtime.

There was no going back now.

We opened with the Grease them song, and the dance that goes with it. I was incredibly nervous, but once you step out on that stage all the nerves go, and it was time to perform. We sang and danced our way through the night, and the rest is history.

It was an experience I will never forget. And that’s what schooldays are all about…

You can check out that Greystones Community College TY Students’ production of Grease right over here.