DEFEND YOURSELF!: JACQUI GRILLI

Fun fact: Jacqui Grilli and I once shared a dressing room! Back before the recent Boston Conservatory graduate laced up skates as the lead in Roller Disco, we were both in a production of Pippin with Nashua’s Peacock Players. It’s been awhile since then, so we caught up before her Boston-area big break.

Talk to me about Roller Disco.
It’s a spoof musical of the movie Roller Boogie that was a hit in 1979.

It’s with Linda Blair, and it kind of has a cult following—it’s a really, really corny movie. This girl from Bel Aire who’s really rich wants to win this big boogie contest down at the beach, so she needs this boy to teach her how to skate, but the parents are all convinced that rollerskating’s bad. So ours takes that and totally makes fun of it.

Is it hard to take something so silly seriously?
It was at first just because we’re all on roller skates. Everyone in the show is on roller skates the entire time. Even the director’s on roller skates in rehearsals because she said she couldn’t direct a show with people on roller skates if she wasn’t on roller skates. It’s really funny.

What’s been your favorite part?
Johnny Max—the boy I fall in love with—and I have a really quick costume change before our final number, and you obviously know that our characters are going to win. We change into these gold costumes that are basically replicas of our other costumes, just gold and sparkly. Costume changes in roller skates are the hardest thing ever because you don’t have time to take your skates off,

so you have to pull your costume up over the wheels. It’s crazy.

If you could give any advice to people who are about to do a musical on roller-skates …
I would say bend your knees, and just practice all the time. Yeah, just skate as much as you can. That definitely helps.

ROLLER DISCO: THE MUSICAL!

WEDS AND THUS THROUGH 8.30.12
OBERON
2 ARROW ST.
HARVARD SQ.
617.496.8004
8PM/ALL AGES/$25
@JACQUIGRILLI
CLUBOBERON.COM