My niece Raicielle and nephew Brian both loved the two High School Musical movies (okay, I did too), so when I found out about the High School Musical: The Ice Tour at the Araneta Coliseum (Quezon City, Philippines) on July 2008. Unfortunately, I forgot to buy tickets earlier than I planned to, so we wound up getting just upper box B seats. It turned out okay because we came early and were able to find good seats right in the middle.

It was the first time I went to a show where 70% of the audience were kids. And screaming kids at that. I kept telling my boyfriend Sidney that I suddenly felt so old, and I’m still in my twenties! I think there was even a school which had a field trip there, and I kept thinking – why didn’t my teachers think of bringing us to shows like that instead of museums for my grade school field trips?

I wasn’t sure what to expect of the show. Perhaps just a couple of people skating and dancing to the popular songs from both High School Musical 1 and 2. I already knew from some promotional pictures that some skaters would be dressed up as the main characters of the movie – Troy Bolton, Gabriella Montes, Sharpay Evans, Ryan Evans, Chad Danforth and Taylor McKessie. What I didn’t know was that they would actually be retelling both movies using the character of Kelsi Nielsen (the composer and “playmaker”) as narrator to fill in the gaps for those who haven’t seen the movies yet.

The show started with the entire cast doing an upbeat version of “Start of Something New,” and each of the main characters was introduced. Surprisingly, they even had minor characters like Martha Cox (the healthy girl who likes hip-hop) and Zeke Baylor (the basketball player who wanted to bake the perfect crème brulee).

The first half told the story of HSM1 – starting with Troy and Gabriella’s “Start of Something New” karaoke performance. Troy and the team did “Get’cha Head in the Game” afterwards which must have been difficult. Shooting and dribbling a ball while skating on ice looked challenging, and Sidney pointed out that none of the skaters except Troy was able to nail a shot in their makeshift court. Sharpay and Ryan then performed my personal favorite, “What I’ve Been Looking For,” even taking some of the choreography from the movie. Kelsi played the slow version, which Troy and Gabriella performed as well, getting them a callback from Ms. Darbus.

“Stick to the Status Quo,” another personal favorite of mine, came next. The set-up was quite similar to that in the movie, with Sharpay and Ryan at the balcony, and everyone around their respective tables. In the next scene, Chad and the other Wildcats got Troy to say that singing and Gabriella were not important to him. Gabriella heard him, as did Taylor and the others from the scholastic decathlon team, through a mobile phone (not a webcam like in the movie). The upset Gabriella then skated a smooth solo to the song, “When There Was Me and You,” which my nephew didn’t like in the movie because he thought Gabriella was being overly dramatic.

The next song was “Bop to the Top” by Ryan and Sharpay during the callbacks. There were moments when they would suddenly freeze in position and the spotlight would focus on either the scholastic decathlon or the basketball championship, which were happening simultaneously. There was this really, really cool scene where they did a slow motion to make sure the ball gets in the hoop. You’d have to see it to appreciate it, but it was very nicely done, and was the highlight for me of the entire show.

This was followed by “Breaking Free” by Troy and Gabriella. It was amazing to hear all the kids singing along. Okay, so I was singing along to all the songs too, but that’s beside the point. The first half ended with the entire cast performing “We’re All in This Together,” and I was so happy that they got the choreography on the chorus from the movie.

There was a brief intermission between the first half of the show (HSM1) and the second half of the show (HSM2), so I had time to stretch my legs. You can read about the second part here.