NEW YORK – "Grey's Anatomy" is being billed as a musical episode this week, but you won't see Patrick Dempsey and Sandra Oh doing a kick line.
"The word 'musical' tends to mislead people," said cast member Sara Ramirez, who plays Callie Torres. "Understandably so. The word 'musical' implies that there's dancing, a lot of jazz hands and some kicks and some turns."
"Grey's Anatomy: The Musical Event" will pick up where last week's show left off with Ramirez's character injured in a car accident. The episode will be told from her point of view.
Music has always been a big part of the ABC medical drama. Since it premiered in 2005, three soundtracks featuring music by such artists as Tegan and Sara, Ingrid Michaelson and KT Tunstall have been released.
On Thursday, longtime viewers of the show might recognize songs from early episodes, such as "Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol and "How to Save a Life" by The Fray — but this time, the cast will perform them.
Singing is nothing new for Ramirez. She won a Tony Award for best featured actress in a musical for her role in "Spamalot" in 2005.
Still, she admitted the experience was a challenging one.
"I wasn't walking into this like, 'Oh, I've got this. I've done this before,'" she said. "I learned a lot."
Ramirez is using the experience as a platform to launch a career as a music artist. She's released an EP on iTunes where she co-wrote three of the four songs. She performs one of them, "The Story," on "Grey's Anatomy."
Of the cast members who sing in the episode, Ramirez said Chyler Leigh, who plays Lexie Grey, stood out.
"She just blew everybody away, and I think we're all really excited for her. ... She has this amazing instrument and she's never sung publicly before, which I thought was really interesting and courageous. She just jumped right in and did an amazing job."
The episode airs at 9 p.m. Eastern.
Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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