I was in town to catch the Senior Cast, featuring Matt Maretz and Taylor West as school basketball star Troy Bolton and new girl/math whiz Gabriella Montez who initially meet on a karaoke stage during winter vacation. Matt starts the karaoke so awkwardly that he begins to walk away, embarrassed, but slowly returns when he sees Taylor West, unaware that he had left the stage, doing her best for her part of the karaoke. And so begins to bloom a new romance that can only be wrecked by peer pressure as the cliques at school try to pull them apart. And so ends their last awkward singing, as both Matt and Taylor combine for their big duets with great vocals and style while trying out for the upcoming school musical.

None of which goes over very well with the school diva, Sharpay Evans, who along with her twin brother Ryan has had every lead in every school musical since birth. And with her own crush on Troy, she’s got another reason to not care for Gabriella. Torrey Mercer stars as an amusingly full-of-herself Sharpay masking some low self-esteem that we see in a nicely done scene with Ben Silbert as her brother Ryan who tries to pick up the spirits of his older sis (well, eight minutes older). They Bop to the Top well together and, if you have any doubts about them being twins, they keep helping each other complete their sentences.

Director Leigh Scarritt has some fun with this one from beginning to end. As the audience files in, some of the students are already at their desks along the front of the stage, members of rival cliques throwing back a little light-hearted banter before class starts. The shy composer of the upcoming musical, Kelsi Neilson (Christine Marie), is already at her keyboard working on the music, where she sits busily working throughout the play when she’s not in a scene elsewhere. Christine turns in a realistically shy and introverted Kelsi with a great singing voice that Leigh lets us hear a bit more than usual. And then there’s the very un-shy acting coach stealing her scenes – a totally outrageous Ms. Darbus sporting a number of crazy wigs to match. Sarah Knapp is a riot in the role, adding so much with her voice, body language, imaginative comedy and passion for the arts as we see whether she’s rising up to do battle with basketball coach Bolton (Jim Wheeler) or ferociously biting her cane when talking about the forbidden love in the upcoming school musical Juliet and Romeo.

Performs August 22 - 31, 2008.

Rob Hopper
National Youth Theatre