Lucy Buffett is ready for her close-up. And she’ll get it this spring in a theatrical production that gives her a chance to pay tribute to a mother who turned her children (including Lucy’s brother Jimmy) on to the bigger world of art.

When Eastern Shore Repertory Theatre presents the musical “Grease” on a Fairhope bluff overlooking Mobile Bay in late April and early May, Buffett will have a prominent cameo role as Vi, the malt shop waitress who provides some sage counsel to her customers.

For the theater company and its founding director, Erin Langley, it’s a chance to showcase a friend of the organization: Buffett’s restaurant, LuLu’s, has sponsored ESRT for years. “She’s been a supporter of ours and a good friend to us, and the timing just worked out for her to join our cast, so we are super excited to have her,” said Langley.

“I love what Erin Langley does,” said Buffett. “I love that that theater group that she’s created, I love having musical theater on the bluff in Fairhope.”

Buffett’s motivations for taking part go back much further, however.

“When I was very young, my mother got me into the Mobile Theater Guild,” she said. “All of us were, my sister [Laurie] and Jimmy too. I had a part in ‘South Pacific,’ I think I was like eight years old. I’m 71, so it’s been a long time.”

“Father [Anthony] Zoghby was the director at the time,” she said. “I did ‘South Pacific’ and then all three of us did ‘The King and I.’ We were the kids, part of the many kids in ‘The King and I,’ and in ‘South Pacific’ I had the child lead so I got to sing a song, actually.”

It was not the start of an illustrious career.

“I tried out for ‘The Miracle Worker’ and I didn’t get the part, but I was cast as the understudy,” she said. “But I think I was being very, I don’t know, rebellious. I think maybe I started liking boys, I don’t know, but I didn’t learn my part. I didn’t learn any of my lines for the part, and I just kept praying through the whole time that that the lead who played Helen Keller would not get sick because I would just be mortified.”

For her upcoming role as Vi she has only a few lines to memorize, and that’s challenge enough, she said. Part of her motivation is to pay tribute to her mother, Mary Lorraine “Peets” Buffett.”

“She just loved theater,” said Buffett. “She loved the musical theater, and she opened all of that up to us when we were young. We would have some soundtrack playing on a Saturday morning when she was off work … She sort of just opened our eyes to the arts and I think that’s how we got off track from being life-long Mobilians to going out and seeing the world.”

Langley might know a thing or two about that. This will be the 12th annual Theatre on the Bluff production. That means that she’s been working with some of her high school-age cast members since they were small. “They do competitions nationally, and a lot of them are auditioning right now for musical theater programs in college and getting into very competitive programs,” she said.

Theatre on the Bluff tends to be a true community production, with musicals that have big, all-ages casts. “Grease” continues that tradition: at one end of the spectrum are the students learning how different life was for their 1950s counterparts; at the other are adults who may be trying some thing new later in life.

“Some of them are trying this for the first time and putting themselves out there in a new way,” said Langley. “And some of them have discovered their love for performing later in life and so there’s just a whole wonderful blend of people coming together to create this.”

“‘Grease’ has been very fun for me as a director because we do have a lot of adults in the cast, and most of the adults who are in the cast have cherished memories of watching ‘Grease’ in their younger days,” said Langley. “And then we have these teenagers who truly are pretty distant from the time period. So there’s been a lot of teaching and coaching from the adults in the cast, and the kids are learning to love it and they, understand that this is like the ‘High School Musical’ of the era.

“We’re basically having to translate all the phrases,” she said. “The style is also very different for them, you know, they’re used to growing up with phones and being in front of screens. These kids [in ‘Grease’] lived a much more wild lifestyle in a sense, it’s been interesting to watch them learn about hot rods and smoking cigarettes and picking up girls. It definitely has been a learning curve for them, but I think they’re really enjoying it.”

Buffett said that when she was introduced to the cast, she tried to share a sense of adventure.

“I said, well, let me tell y’all something,” Buffett said. “I’m really scared to do this, and I know that a lot of you, are very scared, and a lot of the adults in the in this production were, like, terrified. This is a huge project and something I know about is huge projects. I said what I do know is that we can do hard things and we can do scary things. Erin said, ‘I want all of y’all to help her not be so scared.‘”

“I’ll be there the last two weeks of April, where they’ll be rehearsing every day, and I’m all committed to that,” said Buffett. “I’m doing it because I love it and I’m a little less scared and I’ve started figuring out how to learn my eight lines. I looked at my friend and I said, ‘Why did I say yes to this?’ But you know what? I did it because I wanted to have fun. I did it because I love what she does and I think it’s important. I think art is the only thing that may save us.”

Eastern Shore Repertory Theatre will present “Grease” from April 30 through May 3, with shows starting just after sunset on the bluff in Henry George Park in Fairhope. Tickets will go on sale April 1 via ticketing links at easternshorerep.org. General admission is $20, with a limited number of early admission passes available for $75 and reserved patron seats for $125.

Doors open at 6:30 p.m., giving patrons time to enjoy a sunset picnic before the production begins. Patrons are welcome to bring chairs, blankets and picnic baskets including wine and beer. A theatre auxiliary group will operate a concession table, selling Chick-Fil-A sandwiches and other snacks and drinks. There also will be a nightly costume contest for audience members.

For more information on Eastern Shore Repertory Theatre’s educational programs and productions, visit easternshorerep.org.