Grief that hung like storm clouds was parted Friday night at Chanhassen Dinner Theatres as the nation’s largest dinner theater dealt with a tragic dilemma.
How would actors and audiences react to the opening of “Grease” just two days after artistic director Michael Brindisi, who had worked at Chanhassen for 50-plus years and led it for the past 37, died? Would it doom the production? How would the shock of mourning affect what is usually a peppy and boisterous show?
The theater didn’t even consider postponing or canceling this “Grease,” an official said, but instead charged ahead in a situation so rare, most can only recall composer Jonathan Larson’s 1996 death a day before off-Broadway previews of his iconic musical, “Rent.”
“It’s what Michael would have wanted,” said Michelle Barber, Brindisi’s widow and a fellow actor. “The actor in him would’ve loved all this acclamation and outpouring.”

Barber arrived at the theater hours after returning from Australia, where she was visiting family, to give the actors a pep talk at a brush-up rehearsal Friday afternoon. She was greeted with tears and hugs.
“Michael is in this room with us, and he’s so proud of each of you,” Barber told the ensemble. “He wants you to go up there and carry forward. Go get ’em!”
Brindisi died at his home in Chanhassen on Feb. 5 at age 76. Barber revealed that the cause was heart failure.
Barber was accompanied to the rehearsal by their daughter, Cat Brindisi-Darrow, who also had flown in the day before, from Florida where she is associate artistic director of the Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota.