Hey, kids, let’s put on a play!

From the time that I was a mere stripling 7th grader and first visited Disneyland in Anaheim, CA,  I have always been in awe of the collective creative genius of the Walt Disney organization.  The length and breadth of what those God-touched imagineers have created has put them, head and shoulders, on a pedestal, way, way above the rest of us common folk. A great example is the recent presentation of High School Musical at LSU’s Swine Palace. Sure, the musical bears a fairly significant resemblance of the “two households, both alike in dignity” offered in shows like Grease and Hairspray, but the musical, set in a contemporary high school, has an innocence that brings me back to the simplicity of life as I remember it at Lincoln Jr. High back in 1956.

High School Musical shines the followspot on the various groups of people found at any high school in the U.S. There’s The Jocks, in this case, the basketball team, The Thespians – you know, those … actors,  the always dressed to the nines Fashionistas, The Brainiacs who are always on the honor roll and have their noses stuck into books, and the forever delightful gothic rebels, The Skater Dudes. Each of the groups is portrayed as likeable. Even the antagonist, Sharpay (Leigh-Erin Balmer), a Thespian who is certain that she is the center of the solar system and will do anything to keep it so, is fun to watch. She is madly in love with the coach’s son Troy (Bradley), who is content to be Numero Uno on the basketball court. That is, however, until last New Year’s Eve while on an out-of-state skiing vacation he sang an après ski duet with a young lady named Gabriella Montez (Katie Mann). Wouldn’t you know it?! Guess who has just transferred into Troy and Sharpay’s high school. SHAZAM! The world is turned upside down, and the heels are put on while the gloves are taken off.

The conflict centers on Sharpay and her brother Ryan’s (Garrett Bruce) Boris and Natasha-like scheming to sink Gabriella’s vocal ship. It seems that Gabriella, a chanteuse of considerable ability, has tossed her hat into the ring to be cast as the female lead in the school’s musical. Troy, on the other hand, remembering the fun he experienced the New Year’s Eve vocalizing with the young lass, has put his name in the hat for the male lead. Several problems loom. Sharpay wants the diva role by right of her self-perceived stunning beauty and sheer talent. If brainy and talented Gabriella wants to be cast, however, her mandatory call-back tryout conflicts with her school’s quiz bowl championship. As she is the most cerebral of the group, the clouds darken. There is one more fly in the inkwell. Troy, who is the captain of a basketball team that is competing for the roundball state championship, is in a funk because the championship game also conflicts with the call-backs. If he goes to the tryouts in pursuit of the male lead,   he’ll miss the champeenship, or vice versa. Decisions, decisions, decisions:  the stage or the court; the stage or the Harvard scholarship; the court/scholarship or true love.

The cast of the show made the group of youngsters downright loveable, even the ones wearing black hats. If you’ve never been to either the Anaheim, Orlando, or Paris versions of Disneyland, you owe it to yourself and your family to do so. One of Disney’s long suits is the pervasive atmosphere in all of its endeavors that the world, down deep, while having a few surmountable pot holes, is a pretty good place where good will always triumph in the end. That sense is the key feature of High School Musical that, along with the significant singing, dancing and acting talent of the cast, marks it as an always-winner.

One of the most pleasant experiences that High School Musical gave me was the joy of seeing local kids hitting the boards on the stage of a major U.S. collegiate theatre. Freshmen performers Chad McClelland (LHS ’08) and Emily Cook (STM ’06), who also served as the ensemble’s dance captain,  sang and danced their little hearts out, as entertaining as they were when they performed for us as Charlie Brown or Princess Winnifred, on this side of the Atchafalaya.

Swine Palace puts on some remarkable presentations, and is well worth your traveling eastward. In February they will open Satellites, they followed in March with Spring Awakening, and closing in April with Love’s Labour’s Lost.  This is certainly not to shortchange any of the significant talent of which we boast west of Whiskey Bay, but it is another venue within a reasonable drive in which we can partake with a surefooted delight.