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High School Musical Plot

High School Musical is a 2006 Disney Channel Original Movie (DCOM). The made-for-TV musical film tells the story of two students, Troy, who is 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.

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.

A week later, her mother's company transfers her to Alberquque, not knowing Troy also attends school there. Troy is also part of the basketball team that is coached by his father.

During homeroom, Ms. Darbus announces the upcoming auditions for the winter musical. Troy sees Gabriella at the back and tries to contact 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 presumes 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 basketball 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 basketball player daring to try something new it seems that the whole school are loosing 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. Shrapay 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, she gives the parts to Troy and Gabriella.

The basketball team win the championship and the chemistry club win the scholastic decathlon. Gabriella rushes in and hugs Troy. They nearly kiss, but are interrupted by Chad giving Troy the game ball, which he later gives to Kelsi.

The entire cast then meet in the gym for a final song which serves to tie all of the loose ends together. Chad asks Taylor out, Sharpay and Ryan redeem themselves wishing Gabriella good luck, and Kelsi and Jason take the opportunity to shoot the game ball into a basket. The school is united with all of the school's various groups joining together to sing and dance in "We're All in This Together".

After the dance, Sharpay runs to Zeke who is still in the gym. She confesses her love for his cookies and hugs him. Zeke promises to bake her a creme brulee...

Release Dates:
The movie premiered January 20, 2006 on the Disney Channel in the USA and March 10 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 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. (Portugal's time 20:30)
The movie premiered on Disney Channel Italy on Saturday, September 30, 2006 at 5pm, and at 8.30 pm in "karaoke version"
The movie premiered on Disney Channel Spain on September 30, with a previous grand commercial promotion 2006.
The movie premiered on Disney Channel Taiwan in October 7, 2006. (Taiwan time 19:30)

Characters:

Main Characters:

Troy Bolton:
Troy Bolton (Zac Efron) is the captain of the Wildcats basketball team and his father is the coach. Troy has a magnificent voice but doesn't know about his talent until he sings in front of a crowd at a New Year's Eve party with Gabriella. Later on, when Gabriella attends his school, East High, Troy decides to try out for the school musical with her. They prepare the song Breaking Free with the composer Kelsi Nielsen, and win the main roles for the Twinkle Towne Musical. Throughout the movie Troy comes to realize that he has strong feelings for Gabriella.

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 soloing, "looked at all the people staring at her and next thing [she] knew [she] 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 feelings for Troy.

Sharpay Evans:
Sharpay Evans (Ashley Tisdale) is the evil, yet not-evil villainess of the story who appears to be an arrogant, domineering and overall brattish person. She has always gotten the lead roles in musicals, since kindergarten. She 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. So maybe she isn't that mean after all, just a little spoiled. Also, she initially rejects Zeke, but after tasting his cookies, she falls for him and is seen hugging him.

Ryan Evans:
Ryan Evans (Lucas Grabeel) is mostly pushed to the side to let Sharpay into the picture. Ryan is not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed (he couldn't read "GO DRAMA CLUB!"). He can often be very ditzy at times and is the nicer of the two. In the movie, not many details about this character are revealed, but one can conclude he is extremely flamboyant. He also goes along with Sharpay's plans, because he doesn't really know what to do without her. It doesn't even seem that he is much bothered by how Sharpay treats him or maybe because he is just used to it. It can be concluded also that, aside from Sharpay, he has no other friends and is visibly intimidated by the jock crowd. (Sharpay cuts through the group, but Ryan goes around, he avoids eye-contact with Chad, and is more upset that the 'Jocks rule most of the student body, but if Troy makes it to the auditions, then they've conquered the entire student body' than Sharpay is about them making it to the callbacks).

Chad Danforth:
Chad Danforth (Corbin Bleu) is Troy's best friend and member of the Wildcats basketball team. He also seems to be extremely devoted to basketball, (considering he carries a basketball everywhere.) From the start he's a little selfish and isn't very supportive of Troy's auditioning for the musical. However, he realizes later that singing is something that Troy truly enjoys and so Chad throws his support to his best friend's audition endeavor. He has a possible crush on Taylor, evidenced by the fact that he practically asked her out.

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 Gabriella. Evidently she has a crush on Chad, although if she did she hid it well for most of the movie, or it may have developed while the Wildcats and science club were working to get Troy and Gabriella to the callbacks. At any rate she was certainly thrilled when Chad asked her out at the end of the movie.

Minor Characters:

Ms. Darbus:
Ms. Darbus (Alyson Reed) is the harsh drama teacher at East High. Her nemesis is Coach Bolton, and she will only ease up on talented singers. Her lack of knowledge for sports is prominent (she doesn't seem to understand the difference between a basket and a touchdown). She likes to pronounce 'musical' with a flourish, particularly emphasizing the last syllable

Coach Bolton:
Coach Bolton (Bart Johnson) is the Wildcats' coach and Troy's dad. He is a former champion basketball 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, 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 Basketball 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, he loves to bake creme brulee.

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. (Interestingly, Olesya Rulin and Ryne Sanborn-the actors who portray Kelsi and Jason, respectively-are the only cast members from Salt Lake City, where High School Musical was filmed.)

Martha Cox:
Martha (Kaycee Stroh) has a solo in "Stick To The Status Quo" (the only girl with one other than Sharpay) and appears in the finale. If you look closely, you can also see her in a few scenes with the scholastic decathlon team.

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:
Opening Titles
Back to School
"Get'cha Head in the Game"
Auditions
"What I've Been Looking For" (Reprise)
"Stick to the Status Quo"
A Private Conversation
Interventions
The Truth Is Revealed
Working Together
"We're Breakin' Free"
"We're All In This Together"
Credits

Soundtrack:

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 40, at Number 9 on Sunday October 1st 2006.

Stage Musical:

It was announced in Playbill on August 1, 2006 that Stagedoor Manor — the summer theatre camp made famous by the movie Camp — was to be home to the first stage production of Disney's original movie High School Musical.

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

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

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 then the predicted schedule. Zac Efron will be appearing in High School Musical 2 in 2007.

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.