Warren Casey
| Warren Casey | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Warren (Peter) Casey April 20, 1935 New York, New York |
| Died | November 8, 1988 (aged 53) Chicago, Illinois |
| Cause of death | AIDS |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Composer, Librettist, Lyricist, Actor |
| Known for | Grease (musical and film) |
| Home town | Chicago, Illinois |
| Parent(s) | Peter L. Casey Signe Casey (nee Ginman) |
Warren Casey (April 20, 1935 – November 8, 1988) was an American theatre composer, lyricist, writer, and actor. He is best known for being the writer and composer, with Jim Jacobs, of the stage and film musical Grease.
Casey was born on April 20, 1935 in Yonkers, New York to Peter L., a steamfitter, and Signe, a nurse, (Ginman) Casey. Casey received his Fine Arts Degree from the Syracuse University School of Visual and Performing Arts in 1957.
In the mid-1960s, Casey met Jim Jacobs while acting with the Chicago Stage Guild, and the two began collaborating on a play with music about high-school life during the golden age of rock 'n' roll in the 1950s. Entitled Grease, it premiered in 1971 at the Kingston Mines Theater, one of the pioneering companies of Chicago's off-Loop theater movement, in the Lincoln Park section of Chicago. Producers Ken Waissman and Maxine Fox saw the show and suggested to the playwrights that it might work better as a musical, and told them if the creative partners were willing to rework it and they liked the end result, they would produce it off-Broadway. Casey quit his day job as a department store lingerie buyer and the team headed to New York City to collaborate on what would become Grease, which opened at the Eden Theatre in downtown Manhattan, moved to Broadway, and earned him a Tony Award nomination for Best Book of a Musical. The show went on to become a West End hit, a hugely successful film (for which he and Jacobs wrote additional songs), and a staple of regional theatre, , community theatre, and high school drama groups.
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