This article is about the stage musical. For the 1978 film of the same name, see Grease (film). Grease is a musical by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey about the way rock and roll changed American sexuality and culture during the pivotal moment when America took its first tentative steps out of the conformity and social/sexual oppression of the 1950s and toward the individualism and sexual freedom of the 1960s. Like The Rocky Horror Show does, Grease embodies this very real-world cultural friction in its two leads, Sandy (as the 1950s) and Danny (as the 1960s). The show takes its name from the 1950s United States working-class youth subculture known as the greasers. The musical, set in 1959 in fictional Rydell High in Chicago, follows ten working-class kids as they navigate the complexities of sex, cars (and sex in cars), and drive-ins (and sex at drive-ins). The score is a highly authentic recreation of early, raw rock and roll, invoking early groups including Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Huey "Piano" Smith, Paul Anka, The Diamonds, The Tea Queens, The Cadillacs, The Mello-Kings, The Kodaks, The Pengiuns, and many more. In its record-breaking original Broadway production, Grease was a raunchy, raw, aggressive, vulgar show which has since been sanitized and tamed down by subsequent productions.

The show tackles such social issues as teenage pregnancy and gang violence; its themes include love, friendship, teenage rebellion, sexual exploration during adolescence and, to some extent, class consciousness/class conflict.

The show became the longest-running Broadway musical in history, until it was beaten by A Chorus Line, and went on to become a West End hit, a hugely successful film, a popular 1994 Broadway revival, and a staple of regional theatre, summer stock, community theatre, and high school and middle school drama groups.TIME magazine reported in its May 26, 2008 issue, p. 51, that this musical ranked as the sixth most frequently produced musical by U.S. high schools in 2007.

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