One of the biggest surprises of 2006 was the way that a sleepy little made-for-TV movie called “High School Musical” became such a cult teen phenomenon that its soundtrack became a triple-platinum album and the best-selling record of the year. What is gratifying about that statistic is that “High School Musical” is indeed a real musical that respects the form and uses song and dance to tell its angst-ridden tale of a high-school jock and a high-school brain who fall in love with each other and end up shattering all high-school stereotypes and convenient categorizations by wanting to star together in—gasp—the school musical. Emmy Award-winning singer/songwriter Drew Seeley, who penned the hit “Get’cha Head in the Game” from the score and sings on the soundtrack album, heads up this concert version of the show along with several of the multi-talented young stars reprising their roles from the film, including Corbin Bleu (“Chad”), Monique Coleman (“Taylor”), Lucas Grabeel (“Ryan”), Vanessa Hudgens (“Gabriella”) and Ashley Tisdale (“Sharpay”). (Dennis Polkow)
The Beauty Myth: A Review of "School Girls; or, the African Mean Girls Play" at Goodman Theatre Set in 1986 in the Aburi Girls Boarding School in Ghana, five teenagers gossip and primp as they prepare for beauty pageant auditions the following day. The social hierarchy of "mean girls'' is quickly established, as Paulina, the prettiest and best singer, alternately boasts about her superiority and denigrates her classmates for what she considers their inferiority.
Get Sparklejollytwinklejingley: A Review of Elf the Musical at Drury Lane The show is everything you’d imagine for a staged version of Buddy the Elf’s coming-of-age story. You can practically taste the gooey gumdrop goodness from any seat in the house, even if you’re more Team Grinch than Team Buddy.
