"High School Musical" - Woodland Opera House

Left: I recognize several of the people in the front line....Chad Danforth (Erik Catalan) on the left....Troy Bolton (Justin Kelley) together with Gabriella Montez (Kayla Sheehan) in the middle, Ryan and Sharpay Evans (Tyler Warren and Emily Jo Seminoff) on the right. There is Ms. Darbus (Patricia Glass). Kennedy Wenning in the middle, near Spenser Micetich, and Rebecca Rudy, back right. Bridget Eagan, Amanda Salmon and Matt Taloff are here somewhere too.


Left: Emily Jo Seminoff.

Emily Jo has all the right theater skills, and makes a wonderfully flamboyant Sharpay Evans.















Left: Kayla Sheehan.

Kayla has a wonderful voice. I last saw her in DMTC's "West Side Story", a year ago: it's good to see her again.

The show had a bit of trouble with lighting. I believe it was in the reprise to "Start Of Something New": Troy and Gabriella should be in pools of light, but were left rather in the dark.











Left: Jabriel Shelton and Meghan Vanderford













Erik Catalan. Looking at the bio board, his name rang a bell, but I couldn't place it.

I admired Erik's ball-handling skills during the show.

Afterwards, he saw me and said, "Marc, don't you recognize me?" I looked carefully at him, but as sometimes happens with young people, time had quickly changed his appearance, to the point where I could no longer recognize him. Turns out, we were both in Sally Forment's Woodland Dance Academy's production of "Giselle", featuring Megan Holyfield in the lead role, on Memorial Day weekend, nine years ago, in 1998. Amazing! And the program says he was in Yuba College's 1998 production of "Bye, Bye Birdie"? As Albert Petersen? Well, shoot, I was a Shriner in that show! Where is my brain? "Get'cha Head In The Game", Marc!

Erik said he may try out for DMTC's "Brigadoon." It will be nice to see him there! (no Scottish basketball, though...)

Left: Cast at bows, with Justin Kelley and Kayla Sheehan at the front.

I worried before the show about how some numbers would turn out, like "Get'cha Head In The Game". It's one thing when you have all of Disney's resources behind you, but it's altogether different when it's just five players dribbling basketballs and quickly running out of breath.

One saving effect is that Justin Kelley can do standing flips (!) and these skills are very helpful for this show!

Patricia Glass (Ms. Darbus) takes a bow with cast . Patricia was great in this role! She said some people had remarked that her portrayal had reminded them of a local drama teacher, and I wondered if they had Lenore Heinson in mind.









The Woodland Opera House stage