High School Musical
From Aqua Angel
[edit] Synopsis
Strangers Troy Bolton (Zac Efron) and Gabriella Montez (Vanessa Anne Hudgens) attend a New Year's Eve party at a ski lodge over Christmas Break. They find they have amazing chemistry after singing "Start of Something New" in a karaoke contest, and exchange numbers. A week later, Gabriella's mother is transferred and Gabriella begins classes at East High in Albuquerque, New Mexico where Troy sees her in homeroom. After checking that it's her on his cell phone, Troy accidentally gets detention, along with Gabriella, his best friend and teammate Chad Danforth (Corbin Bleu), scholastic decathlon captain, and soon-to-be best friend of Gabriella, Taylor McKessie (Monique Coleman), and Drama Club co-presidents Sharpay Frost (Ashley Tisdale) and Ryan Evans (Lucas Grabeel).
After homeroom, Troy and Gabriella see each other and start to re-introduce themselves. As they talk near the sign-up sheet for the winter musical auditions, the term's musical being entitled "The Tale of the Pineapple Princess of Twinkle Town", Sharpay sees them and assumes Gabriella wants to sign up. With Ryan's help, Sharpay determines that Gabriella is an "Einsteinette", and put an article of her previous academic achievements into Taylor's locker. During detention, Taylor approaches Gabriella and invites her to join the school's scholastic decathlon team. As a result of the detention, both Troy and Chad miss their basketball practice, much to the annoyance of Coach Bolton. During a confrontation between the coach and Ms. Darbus, it is made clear that neither of them has any real respect for the work that the other does. Troy eventually takes part in basketball practice, but he can't seem to stop thinking about Gabriella ("Get'cha Head in the Game").
Troy skips basketball practice during free period to go to the auditions, which Gabriella also attends. However, both are too shy to come forward, so they hide behind a janitorial rolling cart as Sharpay and Ryan perform their version of "What I've Been Looking For". When Gabriella finally decides to audition, Troy offers to sing with her, but Ms. Darbus says it is too late.
After a confrontation with Sharpay, Kelsi Nielsen, the composer of the musical, trips and drops her notes and piano music. Troy and Gabriella rush to help her, and she offers to let them hear how the song was supposed to sound. Troy and Gabriella then sing the slower version of the song, "What I've Been Looking For". Ms. Darbus hears them from behind the auditorium entrance and gives both Troy and Gabriella a callback. The next day, Sharpay sees the callback sheet and is furious. Once Chad and all the basketball players find out that Troy skipped basketball practice to audition for the musical, they all are shocked.
At lunch, everyone has learned that Troy is doing something highly out of basketball players' nature, and the students start confessing their secret passions and talents ("Stick to the Status Quo"), including basketball player Zeke Baylor's love of baking. Gabriella slips and accidentally spills her lunch all over Sharpay's shirt. Sharpay tells Ms. Darbus that Gabriella did it on purpose and tries to convince Ms. Darbus that Troy and Gabriella are trying to destroy the musical.
Due to the incident, Mrs. Darbus gives Troy, the Wildcats, Gabriella and Taylor kitchen duty detention, inwhich Chad confronts Troy about the auditions he secretly went to ("Work This Out"). Meanwhile, Ryan begins to discover that Sharpay is bossing him around. When Ryan is preparing for heading home, he notices that the East High Wildbirds baseball team are playing a baseball game with an extra player needed. Inspired by Troy's new clique issues, he joins in, much to the annoyance of Chad, the baseball team leader ("I Don't Dance"). Surprisingly, Ryan's dancing skills allow him to play amazingly.
Sharpay arrives at her parent's country club, Lava Springs and begins to relax and renew with four girls known as the Sharpettes, until she gets word of Ryan's baseball audition. She then tells the Sharpettes of Troy and Gabriella's musical audition before complaining about not being enough ice being in her iced tea and not enough shade placed on her sun lounge ("Fabulous") before becoming totally enfuriated when Ryan arrives.
Troy asks Gabriella to meet him in his secret hideout, the balcony of a greenhouse. There, she reveals that singing with him at the party was like meeting a new friend at kindergarten; he felt like a best friend although she hardly knew him. They meet up with Kelsi and rehearse the song "You Are the Music in Me". Unknown to them, Sharpay was secretly spying on them.
The following day, Mrs. Darbus announces to the class that the school prom will take place in just a few days. Everyone in the school is excited ("What Time is It?"). Troy asks Gabriella to be her date for the prom, after he gives her a necklace with the letter "T" for Troy on it. Sharpay visits Kelsi and demands she sees Troy and Gabriella's duet sheet. When Kelsi surrendors to her, Sharpay forces Kelsi to rewrite the song, with a faster tempo in order to "keep the audience awake". Sharpay then reveals she plans to sing the song at the prom. Taylor and Gabriella begin to decorate the gym ready for the prom, while Ms. Darbus imports a stage as a "decoration to celebrate the arts". While Ryan and Sharpay play golf at Lava Springs, Sharpay reveals to Ryan that she has a plan to completely humiliate and embarrass both Troy and Gabriella.
The prom finally arrives, with various couples dancing. Troy and Gabriella awkwardly dance until they finally begin to be the best dancers out of all the couples. Their spotlight is cut short when the gym darkens as Sharpay appears on the stage, requesting that Troy sing a song with her. Feeling confident and for it to be a real chance to show the school how much he loves singing, he accepts with the approval of Gabriella too.
Both Troy and Gabriella are shocked to discover that the song is non-other than their own callback song but with a much more faster tempo and up-beat rhythm. Troy awkwardly performs Sharpay's version of the song, "You Are the Music in Me (Sharpay Version/Reprise)". After the prom has finished, Gabriella confronts Sharpay on her plan to ruin Troy and her's song. Sharpay tells her that it was a "welcome gift to the theatre".
Chad and Taylor decide that they need to devise a plan so that everything can go back to normal. The basketball team tricks Troy into saying that Gabriella isn't important while she watches them through a wi-fi link. Gabriella is hurt and confused about where she and Troy now stand ("When There Was Me and You"). Troy tries to talk to Gabriella as normal, but she says that she needs to see him tonight by the school fountain. When the two meet at the fountain as planned, Gabriella tells Troy that it isn't working between them, giving back the necklace he gave her for the prom and stating she may leave the town soon ("Gotta Go My Own Way").
After feeling guilty about ruining Troy and Gabriella's friendship, and noticing that they are no longer interested in the basketball game or the decathlon, Chad and Taylor decide to tell them the truth. Chad, Zeke, and Jason explain everything to Troy in the greenhouse and offer to support him at the callbacks. Taylor and the scholastic decathlon team tell Gabriella what they did, but Gabriella is still angry and hurt because of what Troy said, convinced that he meant it. Troy, angry, runs onto the football field and sings out his rage and his sorrow for realising what he has done to Gabriella, and that he wants to make things right ("Bet On It").
That night, Troy goes to Gabriella's house, but she pretends to be busy with homework. Troy phones her from her backyard, telling her that the guy she met on vacation is much more like him than the guy that "said those stupid things". He climbs onto her balcony and starts singing the harmony of "Start of Something New" in attempt to persuade her to go to the callbacks with him. Gabriella then forgives him, and they start practicing a new callback piece at school together with Kelsi.
Kelsi shows Troy and Gabriella a new song she has just written, as the two sing the song together, Sharpay and Ryan enter the room and begin to sing the song as well, "I Can't Take My Eyes Off of You".
Soon Sharpay and Ryan overhear Gabriella and Troy practicing, and feel intimidated by the competition. Together they convince Ms. Darbus to change the callbacks to the same time as the basketball championship and scholastic decathlon. Kelsi overhears their conversation with Mrs. Darbus, she and the others are devastated, but the scholastic decathlon and basketball teams and Kelsi work together to come up with a plan.
On the day itself, Taylor and Gabriella send a code by computer into the system to disrupt the basketball game by shutting down the scoreboard, and boil a hazardous chemical to stall the decathlon.
As Troy and Gabriella then rush to the theater, Ms. Darbus is ready to give the role to Sharpay and Ryan. The callbacks eventually commence, with Sharpay and Ryan singing the salsa-styled song "Bop to the Top". Troy and Gabriella sing "Breaking Free" and their crowd appeal is much more higher than Sharpay's. Afterwards, Troy and Gabriella talk on the football field before sharing a kiss together.
The next day, Ms. Darbus reveals everyone's roles, with Gabriella and Troy playing Minnie and Arnold, two young lovers who are desperate to find acceptance together during the summer, while Sharpay is the role of the Pineapple Princess, who is trying to break a tiki spell that was bestowed on her handsome prince that transformed him into a Hawaiin fish, and Ryan playing the role of the narrator. Chad, Taylor and obese girl Martha ask to be background characters, inwhich Darbus accepts.
Sharpay begins to exhibit her nicer side, teaching Troy and Gabriella vocal excersises and telling Kelsi that she is the best pianist she has ever heard. Chad tells Ryan that he can come play baseball with him whenever he wants to. Chad asks Taylor out on a date, but is unaware of her answer after she states, "we'll see".
The musical arrives with everyone preparing. Realising that she is going to actually sing in a musical, Gabriella stays at home and decides not to go. While Troy and the Wildcats try to contact her, Sharpay and Ryan stall the show with the song "Humuhumunukunukuapua'a" which was cut by Ms. Darbus. With no sign of Gabriella, Troy must perform the song on their song on his own before Gabriella finally arrives a little late, whicheven ends with the entire cast joining in, "Everyday". The musical ends with the final dance number of "All for One", which centers on Minnie and Arnold finding acceptance and the Pineapple Princess happy to be back with her prince, and that they can now enjoy the summer.
After the musical, the entire school gathers in the gym to celebrate, ("We're All in This Together").
