In direct proportion to the cultural diversity in the world language, dialect, local identity, sense of humour, body language and many other features that we can list are decisive in storytelling in the world of theatre. While these features are expressed only through dialogue in verbal plays, in musical theatre, music and songs reflect all these elements besides dialogues. In this context, musical theatre is an interdisciplinary type of stage art that tells a story integrated with verbal dialogue sections; that is, text, music, lyrics, dance and all other auxiliary elements of visual arts. It should not be confused with the concepts of opera, where music is the primary element, and musical play, where the flow of the play continues without loss of meaning if we remove the music from the text.

In musical theatre, the components are organically connected to each other. Unlike musical plays, when a song or dance section is removed from a musical theatre piece, the dramaturgical structure is disrupted and meaning is lost. In this respect, music and song in musical theatre are not only used in order to emphasise the scene in question, but also to serve the whole story dramaturgically.

The poetic connection between music and lyrics is an important issue, which varies from song to song. However, each composer and lyricist develops it in their own way by working together. Once this connection is established, the music begins to tell the story. At this point the translator takes on a task almost more challenging than that of the lyricist. He/she is now both the lyricist and the guardian of the story. In this respect, the translator or researcher who wants to translate in musical theatre should have a good knowledge of music and literature as well as language competence, as well as some singing practice in order to understand the performer.

An examination of the classic works of the musical theatre repertoire reveals that there is almost always a poetic connection between lyrics, music and the text. In musical theatre, lyrics and music are of equal importance with the text. In this context, as mentioned above, if the lyrics are removed from the music, one of the main elements that tell the story disappears. Since lyrics are of primary importance in storytelling and atmosphere formation, song translation in musical theatre should be done in a way to facilitate the performer’s job by preserving the characteristics and culture of the target language. Since the primary task of musical theatre is to tell a story, problems that arise as a result of loss of meaning in translation, deformation of melody and rhythm, and difficulties experienced by the performer interrupt the atmosphere that the author and composer are trying to create. In a musical theatre work, it should be one of the primary duties of the translator to have technical and practical competence in the disciplines specific to musical theatre in order to tell the story close to the original and to ensure that the transitions between the episodes do not disrupt the dramatic action. In this context, the translator or researcher who is interested in song translation in musical theatre should become competent in the subjects pertaining to the song genres of musical theatre and should proceed according to the details that the composer and lyricist have carefully considered together when translating the libretto into the target language.

Grease, the main example of the study, is a comedy musical in the genre of farce written by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey (1971). It takes its name from the subculture of the young working class living in the United States in the 1950s. The atmosphere of the musical, which deals with peer pressure, politics, personal core values and love, is largely determined by early rock’n roll music. Grease can be considered as a nostalgic return to the Hollywood musicals, which were on the verge of extinction. Since the early 1970s, film musicals, which suddenly began with a song and continued with dance scenes in the streets, had been gradually declining in number due to rising production costs, changing audiences and failed attempts to adapt popular stage musicals to the big screen. However, the success of the film version of Grease (1978) proved that there was still a worldwide audience for musicals. Although the stage production of Grease was quite nostalgic with songs such as Beauty School Dropout and Alone at a Drive-in Movie, the producers added songs such as Hopelessly Devoted to You and You’re The One That I Want, which sounded more like the music of the 1970s than the 1950s, and achieved commercial success and were listened to by large audiences. The Turkish translation of the ballad song Hopelessly Devoted to You and rhythm song You’re the One That I Want, which are still popular today, is the result of the translation process and the subsequent staging of the musical while working with the students I teach at the Istanbul University State Conservatory Musical Theatre Department.

This study deals with song translation in the discipline of musical theatre, which is one of the popular genres of performing arts. The main purpose here is to explain the story that the author and composer want to tell, while translating the work into Turkish without distancing it from the original. This is done by explaining the types of songs specific to the discipline of musical theatre, within the scope of Peter Low’s pentathlon principle (singability, sense, naturalness, rhyme, rhythm). The study analyses the source and target librettos of the musical Grease, which has been translated into twenty languages and performed in more than thirty countries, and argues for the importance of a singable libretto. The holistic approach in the conclusion contributes to the performer by identifying language- and culture-based obstacles in the performative and narrative dimensions of musical theatre, expanding the boundaries of translation studies in this field with a multifaceted analysis.