Warren Casey (
1935 -
November 8,
1988) was an
American theatre composer,
lyricist,
writer, and
actor.
Born in
Yonkers, New York, 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 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 in the Old Town 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,
summer stock,
community theatre, and high school drama groups.