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High School Musical


sparkzxx

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Its been done a few times over in the US as a arena tour. Both 'in concert' and as a musical theatre style production.. Its going round the UK at the mo, but IIRC that's just the 'on ice' version as opposed to a end stage with the kids singing and 'acting'..

 

Apart from that its been done on 'amateur' stages across the UK. Its also going out on a no1 national theatre tour sometime in spring 08.

 

Only thing I could find on the net about the UK theatre productions is this

 

HTH,

 

Tom

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One of the local youth groups (CODYS) did HSM in July to sellout audiences, they even had to put on extra dates due to the high demand.

 

As a show it's everthing you would expect having been forced to watch the film as a parent. As far as I know at the time there is only one set available for it, from a company in Scotland, Its not bad but it's not the best set I've ever worked on either. DoHave a look at CODYS website, there may be some pictures.

With the set CODYS had , you do need quite a big stage about 10m x 10m if you have a (large dance troupe), and wing space for the trucks.

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We've worked on lighting for more performances of High School Musical over the last 6 months than I like to think about... 6 weeks of shows - up to 12 shows per week - up to 3 shows per day ... the audience of every show made up of hundreds of screaming 10-year-old girls... Seriously, it's a phenomenal show and I still really enjoy running it; the energy in the show rarely subsides, and the audiences love it. It's really a cross between musical theatre and music concert.

 

It has always sold really well - for example our production sold-out more than 12,000 seats at Wimbledon Theatre over a week - so our budget for lighting has always been very good. We use a lot of LED in the show to give a high-tech, energetic & dynamic look - hundreds of X-Chip sections and PixelPars to light up the set. Plus a load of VL2000 spots, VL1000 arcs, parcans and scrollers. There are several photographs from our Wimbledon Theatre week on our website - the first 10 pictures are just of the set, the rest were taken during a performance.

 

 

As far as I know at the time there is only one set available for it, from a company in Scotland, Its not bad but it's not the best set I've ever worked on either.

The set shown in the photos is from Scenic Projects in Suffolk, which is extremely good - the LEDs don't come with the set, though - they're ours! :lock:

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OK, I stand corrected. The set we saw was multi level, with the radio booth above the lockers, and another level above a set of double doors (the chemistry set truck was stored behind them) The set also came with a basketball court floor, complete with wildcats logo. I can't find any pictures of it though. (The set came from 'The stage crew' in Glasgow, but there are no photo of it on the website)

 

Yes, the target audience is very much 8-12 year old girls. The whole show has a very much pop concert type feel and flow, loads of scope for interesting LX with movers, but I think it can easily look overdone in the more traditional 'dialogue' type scenes. Just make sure the PA can cover the noise made by 1000 screaming kids. The theatre is only 420 seats, but the noise was deafening, much louder than panto even.

One point to make, the posters that were used were very similar to the DVD cover of the disney film, there were reports from FoH that people were expecting an 'official' Disney touring show. (There were no complaints about the show as it was of a professional quality, but apparently the kids were expecting to see the stars of the film...) It's amazing what some people expect for £6-8 a ticket!

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The group I am with recently staged High School Musical as our summer school show. The stage show is very differnet in places to the movie, with a different character and a few twists in the story compared to the movie.

 

Overall it was a fun show to do, we had a minimal set, we just a rear projection for most of it, showing scenes produced with Sketch Up and a 2 sheets of hardboard painted white with a red widcats logo as the basketball floor. As for lighting, we used 5 mac 500's that teh group own, 4 LED par cans of mine and about 20 generic profiles/fresnels to light areas.

 

The cast and audiences loved the show.

 

All the best with yours.

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It was on possibly twice in Edinburgh this year, (I stayed away from both, but the one at C got a passable review and sold relatively well I think) I don't know what they did with it but as it was an Fringe festival thing my guess is fairly minimalistic set
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  • 1 month later...
It has just been announced today that this years 'middle school' play is to be HSM. Amid the shrieks of laughter in assembly there were quite a few audible groans! It is to be performed at Easter by 13 and 14 year olds, hopefully the school will actually give a budget for this as they seem to be very organised. Does anyone know anything about the script as far as technical potential is concerned, from the posts above it seems to be 'pop concert' style, but any more specific detail would be great as we will inevitably be told a few days before the performance what is wanted. If they can be prepared why can't I be!
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Not really understanding what your asking, perhaps its just the way you phrase it. I guess your trying to just do what most other people do when designing for a show.. look at how its been done in the past/on other productions?

 

from the posts above it seems to be 'pop concert' style,
That's because at the moment, the production only really exists in that format. Its currently being converted into a proper piece of theatre as we speak, all ready for the 08 theatre tour that stage entertainments/Disney are sticking out.

 

Have you tried youtube'ing it (my new phrase ;))? Might be some videos on there of the am dram shows people have been doing this past summer, you'll find a lot of though is the US arena tour, so keep at it. I suspect though, that if you do find anything worthwhile, it'll be something along the lines of: the kids singing the songs, people dancing, bright stage and a nice shape applied to ML's if the production had any.. :unsure:

 

You say your shows Easter, well, if you deem it THAT necessary to watch another stage production of it, maybe go watch the tour. Though looking at the schedule, its not really near you anytime before Easter. Depends if you think its worth the hassle

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