High School Musical

High School Musical
File:HSM.jpg
Directed by	Kenny Ortega
Written by	Peter Barsocchini
Produced by	Don Schain
Starring	Zac Efron Vanessa Anne Hudgens Ashley Tisdale Lucas Grabeel Corbin Bleu Monique Coleman
Cinematography	Gordon Lonsdale
Edited by	Seth Flaum
Music by	Greg Cham Roy Cham Andy Dodd Faye Greenberg Jamie Houston David Lawrence Adam Watts Matt Gerrard Andrew Lane Eddie Galan
Distributed by	Disney Channel
Release dates	January 20, 2006
Running time	93 min
Country	United States of America
Language	English
Budget	$5 million (est.)

High School Musical is a 2006 Disney Channel Original Movie (DCOM). The made-for-TV musical film tells the story of two students, Troy, the captain of his school's basketball team, and Gabriella, a shy new student who excels in mathematical fields. Together, they try out for the lead parts in their school musical. Despite some students' attempts to thwart their dreams, Troy and Gabriella persist and inspire others along the way.

Plot summary

Template:Spoilers Troy and Gabriella, two complete strangers, both go to a New Year's Eve Party. They are chosen to sing "Start of Something New". Afterwards, they introduce themselves and exchange numbers, promising to call each other.

Gabriella's mother's company transfers from Albuquerque, not knowing that Troy actually attends her new school. Troy is also part of the basketball team that is coached by his father. He is the star player of the team.

During homeroom, Ms. Darbus announces the upcoming auditions for the winter musical. Troy sees Gabriella at the back and tries to call her. Her cellphone rings and leads to Sharpay, Ryan, Troy, Gabriella, Taylor and Chad getting detention.

After homeroom, Troy and Gabriella meet and look at the signup sheet for the auditions. Sharpay finds them and assumes that Gabriella wants to sign up. She and Ryan put an article about Gabriella's academic achievements into Taylor's locker. During detention, Taylor approaches Gabriella and invites her to join the scholastic decathlon team.

As a result of the detention both Troy and Chad miss their basketball practice much to the annoyance of Coach Bolton. During a confrontation between the coach and Ms. Darbus it is made clear that neither of them has any real respect for the work that the other does. Troy eventually takes part in practice but he can't seem to stop thinking about Gabriella, which is reflected by the whole team singing "Get'cha Head in the Game".

On the day of the auditions, Chad tells Troy that there is a basketball practice during free period. However, Troy chooses to go to the auditions instead. He meets Gabriella backstage and both watch a series of bad auditions, followed by Sharpay and Ryan's rendition of "What I've Been Looking For". Gabriella suddenly decides to audition, however, Ms. Darbus tells her that she is too late.

After a confrontation with Sharpay, Kelsi trips and drops her notes. Troy and Gabriella rush to help her and end up singing a slower version of the song "What I've Been Looking For". Ms. Darbus watches them from behind a wall and decides to give them a chance. When Sharpay finds out, she is furious.

With the captain of the Wildcats daring to try something new, it seems that the whole school are losing their inhibitions and revealing their true desires to their friends, much to the annoyance of Sharpay. In the cafeteria most of the school breaks out into song singing, "Stick to the Status Quo". Whilst Sharpay is having a stroll Gabriella trips and her lunch goes all over Sharpay. Sharpay informs Ms. Darbus that Troy and Gabriella are trying to destroy the musical. Ms. Darbus informs Coach Bolton and ends up having yet another argument with him.

Chad and Taylor decide that they need to do something and devise a plan. The basketball team tricks Troy into saying that Gabriella isn't important while she watches events through a Wi-Fi link. Gabriella is hurt and sings "When There Was Me and You", later telling Troy that she isn't going to do the auditions anymore.

After seeing how Troy and Gabriella no longer get along, Chad and Taylor decide to tell them the truth. However, Gabriella still refuses to forgive Troy, until he turns up at her balcony singing the harmony of "Start of Something New".

In order to secure their places in the musical, Sharpay and Ryan persuade Ms. Darbus to change the callbacks time to coincide with the championship game and the decathlon. When Kelsi finds out, she and the others are devastated, but Troy comes up with a plan.

On the day itself, Taylor and Gabriella send a virus into the system to disrupt the basketball game, then boil a bad-smelling chemical to stall the decathlon. Troy and Gabriella then run to the theater.

Sharpay and Ryan finish performing "Bop to the Top". But when Troy and Gabriella show up after Ms. Darbus called their names, she tells them again that they are too late. People start streaming into the theater to support them and Ms. Darbus has no choice but to let them perform "Breaking Free". In the end, Ms. Darbus gives the parts to Troy and Gabriella. After winning both the scholastic decathlon and the basketball game, the entire school gathers in the gym to perform "We're All in This Together".

Cast

• Zac Efron - Troy Bolton
• Vanessa Anne Hudgens - Gabriella Montez
• Ashley Tisdale - Sharpay Evans
• Lucas Grabeel - Ryan Evans
• Alyson Reed - Ms. Darbus
• Corbin Bleu - Chad Danforth
• Monique Coleman - Taylor McKessie
• Olesya Rulin - Kelsi Nielsen
• Chris Warren Jr. - Zeke Baylor
• Bart Johnson - Coach Jack Bolton
• Ryne Sanborn - Jason Cross
• Socorro Herrera - Ms. Montez
• Joey Miyashima - Principal Dave Matsui

Release dates

• The movie premiered January 20 2006 on the Disney Channel in the USA and January 20 2006 on the Family Channel in Canada.
• The movie premiered on Disney Channel Asia on Sunday June 25 2006 (with record ratings in the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore) after its success in other countries.
• It was dubbed into Spanish and Portuguese and premiered in Brazil on Sunday, July 30, 2006 and in Latin America on Sunday, August 6, 2006. The songs remained in their original English versions.
• The movie premiered on Disney Channel Germany on Saturday, September 2, 2006 at 6.30 pm. The terrestrial TV premiere was on ProSieben on 17 September 2006.
• The movie premiered on Disney Channel Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Middle East on Friday, September 8, 2006 at 7pm.
• The movie premiered on Disney Channel France on Tuesday, September 19, 2006 at 8pm. The terrestrial TV premiere was on M6 on 30 October 2006.
• The movie premiered on Disney Channel UK on Friday, September 22, 2006 at 6pm and the "karaoke version" premiered on October 6 at 6pm.
• The movie premiered on Disney Channel India on Sunday, September 24, 2006 at 11am.
• The movie premiered on Disney Channel Portugal on Saturday, September 30, 2006 at 8:30 p.m.
• The movie premiered on Disney Channel Italy on Saturday, September 30, 2006 at 5pm, and at 8.30 pm in a "karaoke version"
• The movie premiered on Disney Channel Spain on September 30, with a previous grand commercial promotion 2006. The terrestrial TV channel Cuatro announced that the movie will be aired in november.
• The movie premiered on Disney Channel Taiwan on October 7, 2006. (Taiwan time 19:30), the karaoke version was aired on October 15th(Taiwan time: 19:30).
• The movie will premiere in Chile on Canal 13 on November 17, at 22:0 (Chilean Time = GMT- 4)
• The movie will premiere in The Netherlands on Veronica on December 3, at 18:30 (Dutch time = GMT+1).

Characters

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Main characters

Troy Bolton

Troy Bolton (Zac Efron)is one of the protagonists in the movie, who plays on the basketball team. He has a passable voice that he first discovered in the beginning of the movie when he was singing karaoke with Gabriella. Troy has to face his friends with his new passion for singing and face his basketball coach who is also his father. He comes to realize that he has strong feelings for Gabriella and also manages to both play in the basketball game and sing in the musical.

Gabriella Montez

Gabriella Montez (Vanessa Anne Hudgens) is the shy and brainy new student at East High. She originally meets Troy Bolton at a Ski Lodge on New Years Eve. It is there she realizes her love for singing, previously only being 'The Freaky Math Girl'. She had previously been in church choir, but when singing solo, she, quote "looked at all the people staring at me and next thing I knew I was looking at the ceiling. End of solo career." Sharpay and Ryan find out that she has won numerous Scholastic Decathlons and get her to join the Scholastic Decathlon by showing an article about Gabriella to Taylor (the leader of the scholastic decatholon) so that they can get her to focus on that rather than the musical. She and Troy, against all odds, audition for the Winter musical and win the roles that they auditioned for. She comes to realize that she has strong feelings for Troy.

Sharpay Evans

Sharpay Evans (Ashley Tisdale) is the antagonist of the story who is shown as an arrogant, domineering, and overall brattish person. She had always starred in the lead role in musicals since kindergarten. Sharpay is the more cunning of the Evans twins, and doesn't treat Ryan very well. Sharpay changes the callbacks date to prevent Troy and Gabriella from getting the roles, but it does not work out. However, at the end of the show, she has a change of heart and wishes Gabriella luck. Also, she initially rejects Zeke, but after tasting his cookies, she falls for him and is seen hugging him in the end.

Ryan Evans

Ryan Evans(Lucas Grabeel) is Sharpay's brother and acting partner. They've starred in 17 school musicals together. Ryan isn't the sharpest tool in the shed as shown by his inability to read a sign the Basketball team made out of letters on their shirts which read 'Go Drama Club!' He doesn't have any friends besides Sharpay so therefore he usually follows and talks to her. Ryan is the nicer of the two twins. He sings both 'What I've Been Looking For' and 'Bop to the Top' with Sharpay and also had a small solo in 'We're All in This Together.'

Chad Danforth

Chad Danforth (Corbin Bleu) is Troy's best friend and member of the Wildcats team. He also seems to be extremely devoted to basketball. From the start he's a little selfish and unsupportive of Troy's auditioning for the musical. He thinks that the musical isn't for basketball players. However, he realizes later that singing is something that Troy truly enjoys and so Chad gives his support to his best friend's audition endeavor. He also falls for Gabriella's best friend Taylor McKessie.

Taylor McKessie

Taylor McKessie (Monique Coleman) is the leader of the school scholarly/science club. She befriended Gabriella when she came to the school and, by means both foul and fair, convinced her to join the scholastic club. While she at first tried to stop Gabriella from singing, she eventually ended up supporting her.

Minor characters

Mrs. Darbus

Mrs. Darbus (Alyson Reed) is the harsh drama teacher at East High. Her nemesis is Coach Bolton (Troy's father), and she will only ease up on talented singers. She likes to pronounce 'musical' with a flourish, using a French accent.

Coach Jack Bolton

Coach Jack Bolton (Bart Johnson) is the Wildcats' coach and Troy's dad. He is a former champion Wildcat player, and, like everyone else, expects the same thing of his son. His nemesis is Ms. Darbus.

Kelsi Nielsen

Kelsi "Playmaker" Nielsen (Olesya Rulin) who receives her nickname from Troy, and also "Small Person" from Chad, is the composer of the Twinkle Towne musical, which includes the songs "What I've Been Looking For" and "Breaking Free". Kelsi is not the most confident person as noted by her reaction to Sharpay's comment that Kelsi's knowledge about musicals is not very large, however she gains confidence throughout the film and at the end of the movie, ends up standing up for herself.

Zeke Baylor

Zeke (Chris Warren Jr) is a member of the Wildcats team. He is interested in baking (revealed during Stick to the Status Quo) and he likes Sharpay, and at the end of the movie Sharpay starts to like him for his excellent skills - and cookies. Also, as said in Stick To the Status Quo, he wants to bake the perfect creme brulé.

Jason Cross

Jason (Ryne Sanborn) is also a player in the Wildcats team and eventual love interest for Kelsi Neilsen. It is shown in the finale that Jason takes off Kelsi's hat, revealing her wavy hair and helps her shoot the game ball.

Martha Cox

Martha (Kaycee Stroh) has a solo in "Stick To The Status Quo" confessing that she thinks Hip-hop is cooler than homework. She is the only girl other than Sharpay who appears in the finale. She also appears in a few scenes with the scholastic decathlon team.

DVDs

High School Musical was released on DVD on May 23 2006. Entitled High School Musical: Encore Edition, the DVD includes both original and sing-along versions. The DVD broke sales records when 1.2 million copies were sold in its first six days making it the fastest-selling television movie of all time. It is, however, the second DCOM on DVD to be certified Platinum in DVD sales; the first is The Cheetah Girls. The High School Musical DVD was also released in Australia on July 12 2006 through Walt Disney and will be released on Region 2 on December 5, 2006. It was the top selling DVD in Australia in August 2006. Also, the Region 3 DVD is released on October 10 in Hong Kong. This is the first Region 3 DCOM DVD ever released.

Bonus features

• Learning the Moves featurette led by director/choreographer Kenny Ortega ("Bop to the Top")
• Never-before-seen music video "I Can't Take My Eyes off of You"
• "We're All in This Together" music video
• The Making of High School Musical

Remix Edition

The Remix Edition, a 2-disc Special Edition, will be released on December 5, 2006. It will include all of the Encore Edition's bonus features and add a dance-along featurette, new music videos, original song remixes, new cast interviews, and behind the scenes featurettes on the Hollywood and London premieres.

DVD chapters

1. Opening Titles
2. Back to School
3. "Get'cha Head in the Game"
4. Auditions
5. "What I've Been Looking For" (Reprise)
6. "Stick to the Status Quo"
7. A Private Conversation
8. Interventions
9. The Truth Is Revealed
10. Working Together
11. "Breaking Free"
12. "We're All In This Together"
13. Credits

Charting

Billboard also has Top DVD Sales which High School Musical has charted on.

U.S. Billboard Top DVD Sales
Week	01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10
Position	1	2	6	8	8	13	10	5	6	10

Soundtrack

Main article: High School Musical (album)

The soundtrack was released on January 10 2006 and debuted at number 143 on the Billboard 200, selling 6,469 copies in its first week. In the album's third week, for the chart dated February 11 2006, it climbed to number ten, and has since risen to number one on the Billboard 200 twice (on March 1 and March 22) and had shipped 3.5 million copies. Out of those copies, more than 3 million copies have been sold by August 2006; it was certified triple platinum by the RIAA.

The soundtrack was released in Australia on May 27 2006 by EMI. In the album's seventh week it reached the number one position on Australia's ARIA Album Charts for the week dated July 31 2006 and has been certified gold, selling 35,000 units in total.

The single, Breaking Free, debuted in the UK Official Top 75, at Number 45 on Sunday September 24 2006 on downloads alone. Upon its physical release, its peak position was #9.

Awards

• High School Musical shared the Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Program, during the Creative Arts Emmys on August 19, 2006, with the HBO documentary I Have Tourette's But Tourette's Doesn't Have Me. High School Musical won another Emmy for Outstanding Choreography.
• High School Musical director Kenny Ortega was nominated for the 2006 Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Miniseries or Television Movie.
• The songs "Breaking Free" and "Get Your Head In The Game" were both nominated for Emmy Awards for Outstanding Music and Lyrics.
• On July 23, 2006, High School Musical received a TCA (Television Critics Association) award for Outstanding Achievement In Children's Programming.
• On August 20, 2006, High School Musical won three Teen Choice awards for Choice Comedy/Musical, Best TV Chemistry (Zac Efron and Vanessa Anne Hudgens), and Choice Breakthrough Star (Zac Efron). Vanessa Anne Hudgens was also nominated for the Choice Breakthrough Star.

Trivia

• High School Musical is the second highest rated DCOM to date with 7.7 million viewers, but was at the time of broadcast the highest rated DCOM. On 24th August 2006, it was surpassed by The Cheetah Girls 2 which drew in 7.8 million viewers. Both films were directed by Kenny Ortega.
• In the UK, High School Musical aired on 22nd September 2006 on Disney Channel (UK) and has attracted 1.8 million viewers. This is 10 times more than normal Disney Channel figures in the UK which is normally around 150,000 to 250,000 viewers.
• High School Musical was the first movie available for download on iTunes for $9.99. Segments of the music sequences are also available to download on iTunes for a lower price.
• Corbin Bleu originally auditioned for the role of Troy Bolton but was given the role of Chad instead.
• Matthew Underwood of Zoey 101 was offered the role but due to his contract with Nickelodeon, declined.
• The team is named the Wildcats like in Lizzie McGuire, 7th Heaven, and Life is Ruff. The opposing school, West High, are the Knights.
• Although the musical is set in Albuquerque, New Mexico, most of the film was shot in Salt Lake City, Utah, at a school really named East High School. Salt Lake City also has a West High, but the West High in the movie is actually Murray High School, located in a Salt Lake suburb.
• The songs sung by Troy in the movie were not actually sung completely by Zac Efron. Since Zac is a baritone singer, he couldn't reach the high notes.
• The only song fully sung by Andrew Seeley was "Get'cha Head in the Game".
• MADtv parodied High School Musical in their twelfth season premiere episode, aired 16 September 2006
• The High School Musical DVD was such a success that Disney is releasing a 2-disc DVD entitled High School Musical Remix featuring many new special features including two remixed songs.
• High School Musical got into the Guinness Book of World Records for Most Successful Songs from a Song Track.
• In the movie, Gabriella has a Palm Treo 650, Troy has a Nokia 6260, Sharpay has a T-Mobile Sidekick II, and Ryan has a Motorola Razr V3i.
• During the second homeroom scene, the way that Sharpay claps her hands may be in tribute to the way London Tipton (Brenda Song) claps her hands in certain situations in The Suite Life of Zack and Cody. Ashley Tisdale co-stars in The Suite Life.
• Zac Efron, Monique Coleman, Vanessa Anne Hudgens, Kaycee Stroh (Martha Cox), have all appeared on The Suite Life of Zack and Cody while Corbin Bleu and Ashley Tisdale appeared on Hannah Montana.
• Hannah Montana did not premiere the same night as High School Musical, but there was many commercials before Hannah's premieres in which Ashley, Vanessa, and Zac do a dance-off with Miley Cyrus, Jason Earles, Emily Osment, and Mitchel Musso on the HM set.
• The movie was also made into a book.

Errors

• During the intervention scene(01:22:44), the screen says "Recieving Wi-Fi Signal". This is slightly ironic, as it would be expected that some of the smartest kids in school would remember "I before E, except after C" and know how to spell 'receive' correctly.
• During "Start of Something New", Troy's microphone jumps from the microphone stand to his hand repeatedly.
• During the homeroom scene, when Troy gives up his phone, he is about to close it, but in the next shot, its fully open. Then he closes it and gives it up to Darbus.
• When the players are making an orderly exit from the gym, a cameraman is clearly visible at the bottom right corner.
• When Troy and Gabriella are not speaking to each other and meet in the cafeteria, Gabriella sits down and puts her tray down in front of her. In the next shot, the tray is gone.
• When Troy and Gabriella sing "Start of Something New", the balloons in the center repeatedly change: three white and two blue balloons, then three white and one blue balloon, then returning to three white and two blue balloons.
• In the shot in which Troy is hiding from his father in order to attend the auditions, he is wearing white shoes. In the preceding and following shots, he is wearing black shoes.
• When Gabriella is in a (presumed mathematics) class the teacher is writing a couple of infinite series formulas converging to different values involving the number pi. Gabriella noticed one of the series converged to 16/pi rather than the 8/pi as the teacher had written. The teacher then quickly checks Gabriella's conclusion on a calculator. However, this is impossible because no calculator can calculate the closed-form expression of a converging infinite series.
• During Ryan and Sharpay's callback performance, serveral cameramen can be seen in the backround on the stage.
• In one scene Ryan's eyes are blue and in another one they are brown.
• In the movie Troy says that his friends don't know that his secret hide-out exists, but then another scene they went there to apologize to him.

" in the ladies' room, the song's music sheet was shown, where Kelsi (apparently) drew a heart beside the title. Note that the score was written in the key of A minor while Troy and Gabriella have actually been singing the song in C minor.

• When Ryan is having trouble reading the GO DRAMA CLUB shirts although he didn't have any trouble reading the Call-Back sheet on the bulletin board.

Stage musical

Playbill announced on August 1, 2006 that the Stagedoor Manor summer theater camp, featured in the movie Camp, would be the first venue to produce High School Musical on-stage.

Disney Theatrical Productions and Music Theatre International granted the first license of the amateur stage production to the Loch Sheldrake, New York program, which was performed on August 18, 2006 and featured Jordan Campbell as Troy and Andrea Ross as Gabriella.

In the 2006-07 school year alone, more than 1,260 amateur productions of High School Musical will be mounted.

Differences Between the Movie and Stage Show

• The stage musical includes two new songs: "Counting On You" and "Cellular Fusion."
• Jack Scott, a school announcer, joins the cast of characters
• Former extra song "I Can't Take My Eyes Off of You" has been added to the main repertoire.
• "We're All in This Together" is featured in reprise. There is a newer version of "We're All in This Together" that is led by Chad and Taylor.
• Kelsi, originally a non-singing role, sings a solo in both "We're All in This Together" and "Cellular Fusion."
• Taylor is also featured in new solos in "Counting On You," "The Start of Something New," and "We're All in This Together."
• Several characters are expanded or reinterpreted, while others are minimized in significance.
• Troy and Gabriella sing only half of "The Start of Something New". The chorus sings the rest of the number, led by Chad and Taylor.
• The chorus is featured more centrally.
• Troy and Gabriella kiss right before "We're All in This Together"
• When Troy and Gabriella are singing "Breaking Free" Sharpay and Ryan are visble when Gabriella goes behind the moon and Ryan is dancing one of the times that they show him.

Theme parks

It was announced that a High School Musical Pep Rally mini-parade will start performing before the regular park parade at Disney's California Adventure in Anaheim, California, within the coming weeks. The parade has been converted to an immobile show for production at the Magic Kingdom park in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, which has started performing sooner than the predicted schedule.

Novels

A junior novel based on the movie hit number one on the New York Times best-seller list for children's paperbacks.

Disney Publishing is planning on an original book series that will come on market in April and continue with a new book every 60 days until June 2008.

External links

• Official website
• Disney Channel Asia official website
• Disney Channel's Official High School Musical India website
• High School Musical at IMDb