is an NBC reality television series designed to cast the lead roles of Sandy Dumbrowski and Danny Zuko in a $10 million Broadway revival of the 1971 musical Grease directed and choreographed by two-time Tony Award-winner Kathleen Marshall.

[1] The TV show, from the producers of Dancing With the Stars, was patterned after an original format created by Andrew Lloyd Webber for the BBC series How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?, which selected the lead in the successful 2006 West End revival of The Sound of Music.

[3] The show held open auditions in Chicago, New York City and Los Angeles in October and November 2006.

The show's hosts, Access Hollywood anchor Billy Bush[5] and British actress/presenter Denise van Outen,[4] encouraged and interviewed the auditioners.

The panel of three judges consisted of director/choreographer Kathleen Marshall, Grease co-writer Jim Jacobs, and British producer David Ian.

After the judges had selected the contestants, viewer voting began at the end of the first live show, which aired on January 28.

The two lowest vote recipients in each group from the previous week were required to compete in a "sing-off", on the next episode, where the judges chose which two should be allowed to remain in the competition, and which two would be eliminated.

In the season finale on March 25, 2007, judge Kathleen Marshall stated that if she would have had to choose two performers at the end of the "Grease Academy" section, she would have chosen Julianna and Derek.

Fortunately for her, it was announced that the program's viewing audience agreed as they had chosen contestants Laura Osnes and Max Crumm to star, respectively, as Sandy and Danny.

"[14] After the finale, Riedel again gave a negative review, stating, "The rest of Broadway was put off by the cheesy production values, poorly staged musical numbers and cookie-cutter nobodies who auditioned to play Danny and Sandy.