This Friday sees the terrestrial premiere of Disney’s ultra-successful TV movie High School Musical 2 (Good Friday, BBC1, 4.05pm). Back when it first aired on Disney Channel UK, TV Today had a week of HSM-related features, and they’re still online. So, experience a week in a day with the following links — plus an additional treat that’s not been online anywhere else before!
Er, yes, I know I promised one article a day. Oops. Just think of Thursday morning as Wednesday, and you’ll have something fresh and new this evening — an interview with Olesya Rulin, who plays composer Kelsi Nielsen. And then tomorrow, we’ll have a review of High School Musical 2.
Anyway, as Rob Gilby mentioned in Tuesday’s interview:
I guess the ultimate in the UK has been the more than 300 amateur productions which have been licensed to schools and amateur production groups. So they can not only own a piece of the fun, they can be it. They can be Troy and Gabriella. I wish we’d had that when I was a kid, because I would have been in there!
The professional version of High School Musical - Live on Stage! tours from January 2008:
But what if your school or amateur group want to put on the show? You’ll need to get the performance rights before you can start planning auditions, rehearsals and performances. Licensing is handled by Josef Weinberger.
There is a note attached to the page for High School Musical that because of the professional tour, “only licences for performances by schools or on school premises are likely to be approved at this time”. It may be worth enquiring, though, even if your group doesn’t fit these requirements.
The stage musical as written has parts for six males and five females (including two adults to play Coach Bolton and Ms Darbus), as well as a chorus. Weinberger’s HSM page has links to companies that may able to provide set and/or costume hire if you’re not able to provide your own.
More details on how to apply for a licence can be found on this page.
If you’re planning to be a Troy or Gabriella (or even, if you must, a Sharpay), then break a leg!
It’s Day 2 of TV Today’s High School Musical week, with a HSM-related post every day until Friday, when High School Musical 2 premieres in the UK on Disney Channel.
Today, here’s an exclusive interview with Rob Gilby, managing director of Disney Channel UK, and Gary Marsh, President, Entertainment, Disney Channel Worldwide. Portions of Rob’s responses formed an interview we featured in print a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve left out a small segment that we have already covered concerning Disney’s attitude to iTunes.
High School Musical 2 has already become a phenomenal success in the US, where it’s become the highest-rated basic cable telecast ever. Were you expecting it to be that big?
Gary Marsh: With the first one, we knew we’d made a terrific movie. You can’t possibly program a phenomenon, it has to be discovered by people. What’s so wonderful about High School Musical 1 is that people made it their own. It’s not that we marketed it in an extreme fashion, which is a misperception. People found it, and owned it themselves. It was a fresh experience and a novel discovery for people. I think that’s what enabled it to become such a phenomenon. It came became part of their lives, rather tha n us telling them they should pay attention to it.
On High School Musical 2, we knew there was something brewing just by the buzz. We had heard anecdotally about viewing parties, about ten, twenty people gathering to watch HSM. We heard about a mall in Cleveland where they set up lawn chairs and sleeping bags. Five hundred people came to watch in the centre of the mall. So when you start to hear those sort of stories anecdotally, you start to get a sense that this is something larger than your standard television broadcast.
With the first film, you then produced a singalong and dancealong versions. Are you going to be doing the same thing [for HSM2]?
GM: We will have that, and more! Again, it’s really part of the phenomenon. People want to embrace it in multiple ways. Our opportunity is to give them that.
This week’s print edition of The Stage, which hits the shops today, has a centre spread (as seen above) devoted to the Disney Channel smash hit High School Musical. I interviewed Lucas Grabeel at last week’s press launch of High School Musical 2 at London’s Cafe Royal. In it, he talks about how he decided he wanted to be an actor, the circumstances in which he met his manager, and some of his plans for the future.
Also, managing director of Disney Channel UK Rob Gilby looks at how the TV film franchise has taken off in Britain. While Gilby looks at things from a business perspective, he has a reputation in the industry as being passionate about children’s television as a whole, and that really came across when I was talking to him.
What’s in the paper is just a small part of the coverage we’ve got lined up for you leading up to the UK broadcast premiere on 21 September. Between now and then, TV Today has some great High School Musical stuff lined up:
An interview with Olesya Rulin, who plays composer and musician Kelsi Nielsen in the films
An interview with Gary Marsh, president, entertainment, Disney Channel Worldwide.
A review of High School Musical 2
Some hints from the producers about what they have in store for High School Musical 3
Everything HSM-related will be linked from the blog’s High School Musical page as and when it goes online. You can either bookmark that page and keep checking it, or add The TV Today RSS feed to your feed reader, and get instant notifications of every blog entry.
The Stage is available from most high street branches of WH Smiths and other newsagents, priced £1.30.
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