The popular Disney Channel movie has become a phenomenon on youth stages across the country, filling up every seat in the house. As it did in Riverside Youth Theatre’s recent production where Director Debbie Wolgemuth and her cast and crew treated their audience to a very fun, often creative, and always energetic performance.

They begin their production the way the film does, with the New Year’s Eve party where Troy and Gabriella get pushed together into a karaoke song, surrounded by partygoers who begin dancing to The Start of Something New. Brad Stephens plays a likeable Troy Bolton. Heather Noriega gives Gabriella a very real personality, beginning as a shy and reluctant singer who slowly feels more and more comfortable with Troy. Together they do a nice job with their duets.

Sallie C. Griffin is a flirty and funny Sharpay with great personality as the jealous diva, but with a fragile side hiding just underneath, scared no one will care about her if she’s not a star. Aaron Wolgemuth is her eight seconds-younger twin brother who is just beginning to assert himself, but he has no trouble asserting himself in their auditions when he shakes his groove thing, with Sallie and Aaron demonstrating great charisma and moves in What I’ve Been Looking For and Bop to the Top. But Troy and Gabriella aren’t their only competitors in those auditions. The school’s theatre director Mr. Darbus desperately seeks out other auditions from the audience. When a young girl pipes up and sings a few lines of What I’ve Been Looking For, Sharpay glares angrily and nervously at both her new rival and at Mr. Darbus for giving the girl a chance.

Said Mr. Darbus is given truly a singular performance by Brian Jerz who offers a flamboyant and creative take on the male version of Darbus, adding to the role in many successful ways and doing it all with terrific expressions and body language. He lectures like an over-the-top Shakespearean monologue, punctuates all of the amusing auditions with hilarious reactions, and fights with melodramatic gusto his nemesis basketball coach (played by the adult member of the cast, Michael Lankford, who is in a constant state of rage). And Brian does it all in one outrageous costume after another, from a fancy bandleader get-up to a black leather vest suit to some glittery stuff.

Performed May 11-20, 2007.

Rob Hopper
National Youth Theatre

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