What to sing? (The songs of "High School Musical on Stage!")

I promised myself that I'd look at "High School Musical on Stage!" from a musical perspective.

First, I need to correct myself. In the past, I have referred to the stage show as "High School Musical" (or, in some cases, "'High School Musical' (the musical)"). The correct title is "High School Musical on Stage!" With an exclamation point! Why? Because!

And, I should note that I have never watched the movie all the way through - I'm just not a movie person - so I can't tell you the differences between the movie and the stage show based on experience. For that, I have to rely on the Wikipedia entry for the stage show:

There are two new songs, Counting On You and Cellular Fusion and the former "extra song" I Can't Take My Eyes Off of You has been added to the main repertoire.

If you're interested in how items are adapted from one medium to another, you may want to read this for other differences (example: "Troy and Gabriella share a kiss at the end of the play when in the original movie they do not").

To find out who actually wrote the music, you need to go to the imdb site for the TV show (which of course doesn't include "Counting on You" or "Cellular Fusion"). Here are the credits for the TV movie songs:

"Start of Something New"
"We're All In This Together"
"I Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You"
Written by Matthew Gerrard and Robbie Nevil

"Getcha Head in the Game"
Written by Ray Cham, Greg Cham and Andrew Seeley

"What I've Been Looking For"
Written by Andy Dodd and Adam Watts

"Stick To The Status Quo"
Written by David Lawrence (as David N. Lawrence) and Faye Greenberg

"When There Was Me and You"
"Breaking Free"
Written by Jamie Houston

"Bop to the Top"
Written by Randy Petersen and Kevin Quinn

I haven't been able to find any information on the two songs that were new for the musical, other than noting that Bryan Louiselle must have been involved.

But I did find some information on David Lawrence:

With a degree in music composition, a background in LA's R&B pop scene and most recently an accomplished career as a Hollywood TV and film composer (American Pie 1 & 2, National Lampoon's Van & Wilder, Beverly Hills 90210), David Lawrence got the call from Disney to write a feature song as well as the underscore for HSM.

Lawrence was then interviewed:

MOTU: What is High School Musical (HSM)?

David: HSM is a made-for-TV movie done by the Disney Channel.

MOTU: And what was your role in the project?

David: I did all of the original score, and I also composed (wrote, produced and arranged) an original production number with my partner, Faye Greenberg, in the middle of the show called "Stick to the Status Quo", which is on the soundtrack album as well....

MOTU: How did you get involved in the project?

David: I had been very fortunate to work for Disney a couple of times before this. I did a movie with them called "Pop Rocks" a couple of years ago. And then they asked me to do their Christmas movie called "Snow" about three months after that. And then 4-5 months after that I got a call from Steve Vincent who is the Director of Music at the Disney Channel, who said, "We're doing this thing called High School Musical and we want you to do the score." And it became apparent they needed some songs. I hit it off with the director, and I told him I'm a songwriter, too. That's how my partner and I started, before I even got into TV and film scoring....

MOTU: Can you give us a thumbnail overview of your overall involvement in the project? Did you start out by meeting with the director, or did you first submit song ideas?

David: We were one of six song writer (or song-writing teams) that are on the soundtrack. Each songwriting team sat down with the executives, the producers and the director to go over the story line and what the song needed to achieve. Most of the songs were sort of like "drop in" or "plug in" songs for the moment, without advancing the plot line or the story line, which is what you have in a real musical. Instead they were meant to be really good pop tunes that were placed in the moment to express the moment and then the story moves on afterwards. They came to us and said, "Look, we've got this pivotal point in this movie." It's about kids trying to take chances by following their heart, going against the odds (just like the two leads in the story), and they needed a story-driven, theatrical, yet pop-oriented song. And they came to us to write that. And it was a very hard number to write because it had to satisfy a lot of story points. It had to drive the story forward. It had to be driving in and of itself, but it also had to be theatrical and infectious as well. And it involved many characters in the movie, who would each stand up and sort of sing/speak their piece and basically drive the plot forward. And so it became this big dance number staged in the high school cafeteria. By the end of the number, the story was moved along successfully, and there was a big dance break in the middle, and it became this big complicated number that ended up taking about four months to write.

MOTU: Four months?

David: Only because they kept changing how they wanted to do it, once they were shooting it. You know: can we do it this way instead? And they kept revising it every two days. And my partner had to do many lyric rewrites because the stories kept changing. Then I had to do several dance arrangements, a couple of dance breaks, and then a couple of changes in the break-down section. We were still rewriting even after they finished shooting! And then opening up space in the middle of the number and inserting 16 or 18 bars to sort of make things work from a dance perspective and then closing it back up again with the material we originally recorded.

Incidentally, in the course of searching for information, I found a web page listing future performances of "High School Musical on Stage!", including our own (and a performance at my old high school).

Here are the listings for the rest of the month:

FAMOUS PRODUCOES
VILA NOVA DE GAIA, .. PT
From 02/29/2008
Until 03/30/2009

CJ ENTERTAINMENT INC.
SEOUL, .. KR
From 11/01/2008
Until 12/31/2009

STEVENSON HIGH SCHOOL
STERLING HEIGHTS, MI US
From 11/05/2008
Until 12/05/2008

PAPER MILL PLAYHOUSE
MILLBURN, NJ US
From 11/05/2008
Until 12/17/2008

VALLEY PLAYERS
AMESBURY, MA US
From 11/08/2008
Until 11/30/2008

THEATRE EXPERIENCE OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
CLAREMONT, CA US
From 11/13/2008
Until 11/15/2008

I'll be part of the ensemble for the Claremont production.

OGDEN COMMUNITY HIGH SCHOOL
OGDEN, IA US
From 11/13/2008
Until 11/15/2008

YUKON HIGH SCHOOL
YUKON, OK US
From 11/13/2008
Until 11/15/2008

KOHLER HIGH SCHOOL
KOHLER, WI US
From 11/13/2008
Until 11/16/2008

PLAINFIELD HIGH SCHOOL
PLAINFIELD, IN US
From 11/14/2008
Until 11/16/2008

ELLINWOOD HIGH SCHOOL
ELLINWOOD, KS US
From 11/14/2008
Until 11/16/2008

SANTA FE TRAIL HIGH SCHOOL
CARB0NDALE, KS US
From 11/14/2008
Until 11/16/2008

HILTON HIGH SCHOOL
HILTON, NY US
From 11/14/2008
Until 11/22/2008

WAKEFIELD HIGH SCHOOL
ARLINGTON, VA US
From 11/14/2008
Until 11/22/2008

Coincidentally, my old high school will start its performances on Friday.

DEFIANCE COMMUNITY THEATRE
GLENWOOD SPRINGS, CO US
From 11/14/2008
Until 11/22/2008

RIDLEY SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL
FOLSOM, PA US
From 11/14/2008
Until 11/23/2008

MARANA MIDDLE SCHOOL
MARANA, AZ US
From 11/19/2008
Until 11/22/2008

HOLLAND CHRISTIAN HIGH SCHOOL
HOLLAND, MI US
From 11/20/2008
Until 11/22/2008

KINGS EDGEHILL SCHOOL
WINDSOR, NS CA
From 11/20/2008
Until 11/22/2008

HATTIESBURG CIVIC LIGHT OPERA
HATTIESBURG, MS US
From 11/20/2008
Until 11/23/2008

SUMMER THEATRE IN MEREDITH VILLAGE
MEREDITH, NH US
From 11/20/2008
Until 11/23/2008

SOUTH FREMONT HIGH SCHOOL
ST ANTHONY, ID US
From 11/20/2008
Until 11/24/2008

DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY-RICHARDSON THEATRE
FORT SHAFTER, HI US
From 11/20/2008
Until 12/06/2008

STANWICH SCHOOL
GREENWICH, CT US
From 11/21/2008
Until 11/21/2008

AMERICAN CO-OP SCHOOL TUNISIA
LA GOULETTE, .. TN
From 11/21/2008
Until 11/21/2008

MOULTON-UDELL COMMUNITY SCHOOL
MOULTON, IA US
From 11/21/2008
Until 11/22/2008

ARCHBISHOP RYAN HIGH SCHOOL
PHILADELPHIA, PA US
From 11/21/2008
Until 11/23/2008

ABERDEEN HIGH SCHOOL
ABERDEEN, WA US
From 11/21/2008
Until 11/23/2008

LIMA CENTRAL CATHOLIC SCHOOL
LIMA, OH US
From 11/21/2008
Until 11/23/2008

USAG-JAPAN
APO, AP JP
From 11/22/2008
Until 11/23/2008

So, sing along...