America's Most Famous High School

It was unbelievable, really: "High School Musical" live, on-stage at what the program billed as "America's most famous high school", our own East High School! This fall's drama department production was the stage version of the Disney cult hit. When the regular three performances sold out, the school added two additional performances. In addition to seeing the play, for a small fee you could be photographed with a cast member in the commons. The school made an estimated $25,000 on this year's musical production!

Coming home on Monday evening from Dinner with Dad, we decided to see if we could get stand-by tickets. The regular tickets were sold out but they assured us that all the stand-byes had been able to get in at previous performances. Waiting in line with us were the Bauman's, the Morgans, and a score of others. We were admitted to auditorium at 6:55 and excitedly took our seats. To say that the crowd was worked up would be an understatement - this was the biggest thing to happen at East High School in anyone's living memory!

And we were not disappointed. The production started off at a high-energy level and accelerated from there. No fewer than 100 students were in the cast, many of them dancing in the aisles of the auditorium. Mr. Green was at the keyboards, Annie Pulsipher (Y2) played Mrs. Darbus, Emily Lund (GP) played Sharpay, and Bill Christiansen played himself. By the time we reached the concluding megamix we knew we had been witnesses to something special! The only drawback was than our EHS graduates and their posterity were not all there to see it!