Taylor Swift, tell Us more about your “summer nights” at Rydell High!
Swift, 34, starred as leading lady Sandy Olsson in a local production of Grease before she launched to superstardom, according to recently unearthed photos.
“Thank you mom for digging these pics of @taylorswift and I harmonizing like buttah on summer nights 25 years ago out of storage,” comedian Tobin Mitnick captioned an Instagram slideshow on Thursday, February 1. “Also trav the note is an f-sharp if you’re interested.”
In the photos, a young Swift perfectly embraced her role as Sandy, wearing a pair of white shorts and a matching hoodie with her hair tied in a high pony while clasping her hands together. Mitnick, meanwhile, was Sandy’s love interest Danny Zuko and wore a leather jacket to get into character. Mitnick also raised his hand in a “Travolta point,” seemingly replicating John Travolta’s final dance move from the movie’s “Summer Nights” number.
In a second pic, Swift wore an edgier costume for the show’s finale, donning a strapless black dress and a curly-haired blonde wig.
While Swift eventually pursued her passion as a singer and songwriter, musicals like Grease have always been close to her heart.
“The first time that I fell in love with performing is when I went to go see theatre in my hometown in Pennsylvania,” she said during a 2011 concert in Iowa, per Taste of Country. “I would see it done incredibly well — going to see Broadway plays of Wicked — things like that just really inspired me from an early age to love putting on a theatrical performance where there are story lines and characters, and you’re always seeing a scene change into another scene. I love telling a story in any way possible.”
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Swift has incorporated similar storytelling into her own songs and live shows. She reflected on how performing inspired the production of her album Lover in a 2019 interview with British Vogue.
“I was really singing a lot at that point — I’d just come from a stadium tour, and then did Cats, which was all based on live performances — so a lot of that album is nearly whole takes,” she said. “When you perform live, you’re narrating and you’re getting into the story and you’re making faces that are ugly and you’re putting a different meaning on a song every time you perform it.”
Swift, who had a brief role in 2010’s Valentine’s Day, returned to the world of musicals with a role in the 2019 Cats movie. (Tom Hooper’s adaptation was based on Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘80s musical.)
“I really had an amazing time with Cats. I think I loved the weirdness of it. I loved how I felt I’d never get another opportunity to be like this in my life,” she gushed to British Vogue.