Minneapolis theater rides Disney's wave
By some estimates, about 40 million people have now seen Disney's "High School Musical"--either on the Disney channel or DVD.
The story itself is nothing groundbreaking. High school basketball star Troy Bolton and brainy math student Gabriella Montez are from two different worlds. In spite of their differences, they share a secret desire to audition for the school play. And, of course, they're in love.
Think "Romeo and Juliet" without the bloodshed. Or think of the movie "Grease," minus the risque leather outfits worn by that story's main character to win popularity.
"High School Musical" is, by contrast, extremely wholesome. The characters succeed by being chaste and non-conformist and, of course, by singing a bunch of really catchy numbers. In one of them, Troy tries to get Gabriella out of his mind at basketball practice.
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"Keep your head in the game," he sings.
It really sort of grabs you. There was this very palpable sense of energy that was radiating through the whole house.
By the time Peter Brosius, the artistic director of the Minneapolis-based Children's Theatre Company, first heard about "High School Musical" it had already become a sensation.
"Friends at the theatre were talking to me about it, and I said 'What is that?' And they looked at me like I was a Martian," he says.
Brosius says he understood "High School Musical's" appeal when he sat down to watch it with his two kids.
"It was kind of a moving experience watching both the 8-year-old and the 13-year-old find wonderfully different things in it, loving the music, loving the story, which was about being accepted for who you are," he says.
So Brosius started to inquire with Disney about licensing the story for theatrical production. And the Children's Theatre Company became the first of five professional theatres to get to stage the show. The theatre's PR director says when tickets went on sale, the response was so overwhelming that the Web site crashed and the phone circuits were overloaded.
The play opened in Minneapolis this past weekend to a sold-out audience. The Minneapolis cast is all local.
At a matinee Sunday, kids clogged the lobby of the theatre. Many of them were girls. That may be why 8-year-old Jeremy Jacobs and his 4-year old brother Ryan declined to go on record when a reporter asked why they wanted to come see the show -- to their dad's chagrin.
"Tell her," his dad, John, encourages Jeremy. "I don't know!" Jeremy says. "Come on, we watch the movie like every day," says his dad. "Ryan! Ryan likes it better," Jeremy says, trying to wriggle out of the question. "No!" shouts Ryan. "Why did we come to see this musical?" John encourages Ryan to answer. "I don't know!" Ryan whines.
To some theatre critics, it's painfully obvious why kids are indeed flocking to the production at the Children's Theatre Company. Pioneer Press critic Dominic Papatola says he was at first disappointed to see a mass-appeal show put on by the non-profit, Tony Award-winning company.
"That said, it really sort of grabs you. I think there's a reason it's so popular. The tunes are so infectious, the energy in the movie is very infectious, and the show live...there was this very palpable sense of energy that was radiating through the whole house," he notes.
Papatola says it's hard to tell what "High School Musical" will do for the Children's Theatre's bottom line. He says the production has a short run and involved a lot of expensive teching, so it might not make the company a ton of money. But he imagines it being restaged at a bigger house in the future.
That's an idea that purists like Ryan Jacobs will have to warm up to. He doesn't mind that the Children's Theatre is doing the show. But he's disturbed by deviations from the original movie.
"There's some words that are not really in the show," he says. "They have nearly memorized the whole movie," his father explains, "so Ryan keeps leaning over in the show saying, 'Their words are wrong. They're not doing the words right!'"
"High School Musical" runs through March 11.
