Zac Richey

Columbia College Chicago Theatre Department alum Zac Richey ’21, a graduate of the Theatre Department’s BA Program in Musical Theatre with a Minor in Stage Combat, is featured in the musical Grease, running April 12 through June 4 at Drury Lane Theatre in the Chicago suburb of Oakbrook Terrace. Richey plays the role of Johnny Casino and also understudies the role of Kenickie. For tickets, click here.

Jim Jacobs

As previously reported in this blog, Grease was co-written in 1971 by actor-playwright-songwriter Jim Jacobs HDR ’14, recipient of an Honorary Doctorate of Arts from Columbia College Chicago in 2014, when he addressed graduating Theatre students at the 2014 Columbia College Commencement. Jacobs, who launched his theatrical career in Chicago in the 1960s, is the  benefactor of the Jim Jacobs Musical Theatre Scholarship at Columbia College, established in 2013. Over the past decade the scholarship fund has distributed more than $100,000 in financial aid to students in the Theatre Department’s Musical Theatre BA/BFA Program.

Grease premiered in 1971 at Chicago’s Kingston Mines Theatre. The following year, it opened on Broadway in a revised version that ran for eight years. For more than 50 years the show has entertained audiences on Broadway in several revivals, as well as in theatres around the world and in film and TV incarnations.