Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies joyfully brings viewers back to Rydell High and honors the iconic Grease films while simultaneously building something new. The 10-episode series takes place four years before the events of the original Grease film, which was released in 1978. In keeping with the spirit of the original film, Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies is a fully-fledged musical series, with plenty of modern touches in the music and choreography that help it stand apart from the films that inspired it.

Audiences have songwriter and executive music producer Justin Tranter and choreographer and director Jamal Sims to thank for the memorable songs and stunning dance numbers so prevalent in Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies. Tranter is one of the most successful and influential pop songwriters of the modern era, as well as the owner and CEO of Facet Records & Publishing. Sims is a prolific choreographer and has contributed to such well-known projects as Encanto, the live-action Aladdin film, and 13: The Musical.

Related: Grease: Rise Of The Pink Ladies Season 1 Review - A Busy, Energetic Prequel

Justin Tranter and Jamal Sims spoke with Screen Rant about their approach to Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies, and honoring the original film.

Justin Tranter & Jamal Sims on Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies

Marisa Davila and Jason Schmidt in Grease Rise of the Pink Ladies

Screen Rant: What was the most difficult thing about updating Grease for 2023 while still honoring the films?

Jamal Sims: It was all challenging, but I think we don't necessarily feel like it's an update because it's a prequel. We're kind of just making sure that we honor the blueprint of what it was, but we're also creating a new thing. I never really put the pressure on myself, and I think Justin feels the same. We just wanted to create something entirely new. [Something] that felt familiar, but [also] something exciting. That was the thing for me.

Justin Tranter: The original Grease is so loved, which [makes it] scary to step into those shoes, but it's very much a late 70s version of 50s nostalgia. It's not supposed to be this perfect period piece. That let me feel a little more free in terms of, like, "All right, so they were 'current meet the 50s'. I get to be 'current meets the 50s', sonically." That took a lot of pressure off; when your north star didn't put pressure on themselves in that way. It let me not put pressure on myself. Also, what an honor to be able to step into a world that people love so much. I just focused on the honor, not on the terror.

Justin, you're one of the great pop songwriters of the modern day. Did you have any learning curve or issue getting into the world of musicals, or had you been interested in that, or done that before?

Justin Tranter: I've been interested for years and years; that's why I got into music in the first place, whether it was Grease, obsessing over the Pink Ladies specifically, or Annie, or all these musicals. That's why I ever even realized I liked music, so to get to go back to the things that sparked me in the first place was really exciting.

Also, I've been lucky enough [that] I've been developing a stage musical with Idina Menzel and Eve Ensler and Diane Paulus. I'd been working on that for about two years before I got this job, so through those three giants of theater and musical theater, I had already been in a two-year masterclass about how to try to attack this art form. Then, we had to figure out... no one's ever done 30 original songs for a TV show before. Even figuring out, like, logistically, who do you send the song to, and when, and how do you send it? That was a whole **** show in itself.

Jamal, you said you're not modernizing [Grease], but I feel like this show levels up what you expect from choreography in a TV show. You have these incredible sets and shots. There was one where you're reversing footage, and people have to do [their] dancing in reverse. It's insane. How much work did you put in making sure that this was something people haven't seen before?

Jamal Sims: The exciting part of it is that we get to use technology of today's time, as opposed to what they had available to them back in [the days of] the big MGM musicals. We were able to utilize those things, and I think that that's what elevated the the numbers. We could really use that that technology. Also, once you do that, people still want to feel like they're getting what they were used to. We just had to find that balance of updating it, and making it fresh, and making it new, but then also making it feel like "Oh, yeah, I know this. This feels like home." It was the balance.

Justin Tranter: It was really fun to get in phone calls from Jamal and Annabel, our showrunner, of like, "Hey, so in this part, she's going to pop all of the boys like balloons. Can you make sure the music feels like that?" I was like, "I will try. I've never had that request before, but let's try."

About Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies

Tricia Fukuhara, Marisa Davila, Cheyenne Isabel Wells, and Ari Notartomaso in Grease Rise of the Pink Ladies

The musical series takes place four years before the original “Grease.” In 1954, before rock ‘n’ roll ruled, before the T-Birds were the coolest in the school, four fed-up outcasts dare to have fun on their own terms, sparking a moral panic that will change Rydell High forever.

Check out our other interviews for Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies:

Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies airs new episodes every Thursday on Paramount+.