Reality TV and Broadway intersect

Stage actors and wannabe stage actors, get ready for your close-up: Reality TV is about to make its Broadway debut.

Sunday night (8 ET/PT, NBC) will introduce Grease: You're the One That I Want, a series in which viewers will choose two probably unknown and possibly untrained performers to play the lead roles of Danny and Sandy in a new production of the oft-revived musical about teen life in the '50s.

The first and second episodes taped initial auditions in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York and feature as a guest star Olivia Newton-John, who played Sandy in the film version. The third brings selected hopefuls to Grease Academy, where Tony Award-winning director/choreographer Kathleen Marshall will lead a team of professional acting, dance and vocal coaches. The 12 finalists (who already have been chosen) will then duke it out in six live episodes. Access Hollywood's Billy Bush will host, and Denise Van Outen will co-host.

Like a certain other TV talent search, You're the One will include a panel of two American judges and one Brit. Marshall and Grease creator Jim Jacobs will join U.K. stage impresario David Ian, whose credits include the West End revival of Grease.

During a conference call this week, Ian was asked whether he would play the English heavy, a la Simon Cowell. "I like to think I'm the brutally honest one, as well as the nasty one," Ian said. "But I think we've all kind of told it like it is."

Ian also produced BBC reality show How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria, which enabled a young unknown to land the starring role in a West End staging of The Sound of Music. The program was such a hit, a new series will cast several roles in an upcoming revival of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

The merging of musical theater and reality TV has some U.S. precedent as well. American Idol runner-up Diana DeGarmo and semifinalist Josh Strickland are now on Broadway in Hairspray! and Tarzan, and finalists Constantine Maroulis and Tamyra Gray respectively appeared in The Wedding Singer and Bombay Dreams. Even Frenchie Davis, who was famously kicked off Idol after being linked with an adult website, subsequently found a home in Rent.

But You're the One, which takes its title from a song featured in the film version of Grease -- one of several tunes from that soundtrack that will be folded into the new stage production -- is the first television show designed specifically to find a pair of Broadway stars.

"We used to have variety shows that would introduce Broadway performers to a national audience," Marshall says. "You would see people like Carol Burnett or Barbra Streisand. This is kind of the reverse: TV will create stars who can bring audiences to Broadway."

A decision was made early on to hold auditions for members of Actors' Equity, the union representing actors and stage managers, whose experienced performers would traditionally be eligible for Broadway leads, Marshall says. Equity's Maria Somma confirms: "The concern was that Equity (members) had to be at no disadvantage during the casting process. The producers totally agreed."

Granted, Equity members had to accept that they eventually would be "fed into the process" of a live reality show, Marshall says. "But this isn't about trying to humiliate people. No one has to eat a live bug on television. And it's not an amateur contest; it's an open call, which means that we could choose anyone, a waitress or a pro."

Marshall won't say who made the final dozen, but her general comments offer a hint: "With Grease, you're looking for talent and skill but also for freshness. You're not casting Sweeney Todd here. It's a smart but lighthearted and fun-loving show about high school students. It's always been a launching pad for young talent."

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