By now, everybody knows about the phenomenon that is
High School Musical, which includes two movies, an ice tour, and a stage musical. Pre-pubescent Americans aren’t the only ones buying it up, the little made-for-tv musical that could is a worldwide phenomenon. In Argentina,
High School Musical is so popular that Disney is creating an Argentine production of the film (until now, tweens watched a dubbed version with the songs played in their original English for their HSM fix). In order to cast the leads, Canal 13 is airing
High School Musical: La Seleccion, a reality show in the tradition of
You’re the One that I Want and its British predecessor
How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria. A Mexican version of
La Seleccion is simultaneously being aired in Mexico.
High School Musical: La Seleccion airs every Sunday night on Canal 13 in Argentina and replayed every Monday night on the Disney Channel, but episodes can be viewed worldwide on the channel’s website. Episodes are usually up by Tuesday and there is a backlog of episodes to catch up on the season. Twenty-six thousand young adults were narrowed down to 20. There are eight remaining and of those eight, four will be chosen to portray Troy, Gabriella, Ryan, and Sharpay.
Argentine reality shows (of which there are many) tend to be much more rigorous than American versions. The 20 finalists attend “escuela,” a sort of High School Musical training school. Each week culminates in a concert in front of a live studio audience. A panel of four judges the performances and the scores are then combined with a score for escuela. The two with the lowest scores go to the phone votes. Unlike
You’re the One That I Want, only one person is eliminated each time, regardless of sex. Therefore, a boy can be up against a boy, a girl against a girl, or a boy against a girl (this last one is not really fair, because the boy almost always beats out the girl in the phone votes). Whoever wins the phone votes is still allowed to participate in the concerts. Unlike other reality show in which the losers go home, the kids who lose the phone vote still participate in school and are usually background dancers and singers during the concerts. Also, everybody had a chance to participate in the recording of the soundtrack (for the television show, not the movie), which is already gold in Argentina.
Last week was the final week for eliminations and the eight remaining finalists, four boys and four girls, will perform in the concerts until the end. So far, everybody who was eliminated deserved to go home. The theme of the show is “cantar, actuar, bailar” (sing, act, and dance), but of the original 20, only about six are a triple threat. This week, each contestant performed a song and the judges made comments, but did not give scores. At the end, the judges deliberated and decided which roles four of the contestants would be competing for. The other four will be decided next week. The whole episode was fairly pointless, but entertaining nonetheless.
Most of the contestants go by cutesy nicknames and the eight finalists are Fernando Dente (Fer), Walter Bruno (just Walter), Juan Macedonio (Juanchi), Gaston Vietto (he goes by Gaston, but they also call him “El Charango,” the name of an instrument which he plays), Agustina Vera (Agus), Delfina Peña (Delfi), Sofia Petros (Sofi), and Valeria Baroni (Vale).
Of the remaining male contestants, Fer has the best voice. He has a good range, consistently gives entertaining performances, and can actually dance and sing at the same time without losing his breath. He is a versatile actor who can do great comedic performances, but can also play the Romeo. The judges have not yet decided whether he will be competing for Troy or Ryan. He does have the Troy hair going on, but he is so good at being silly that I kind of hope he plays Ryan. He is the only one of the four that I think can do something with the role.
Walter is probably my favorite. I love his falsetto and his self deprecating humor (the poor kid has braces). The judges also haven’t decided which role he is going for, but if they have any sense, they will pick him for a Troy.
Juanchi is one of the fan favorites, but he is the most inconsistent of the males. He brings the house down with his rock performances, but he does not have the best vocal range. Altough he has given some weak vocal performances, he is, as the judges say, an excellent "showman". When he had to sing Mika’s “Grace Kelly,” a song that was clearly out of his range, he worked it with his energy and dance moves and the audience and judges ate it up. The judges picked him as a Ryan, which seems a little off. He is too rock ‘n’ roll and not enough musical theatre. He would make a good Chad, since he’s got that whole too cool for school thing going on, but unfortunately, they’re not auditioning for that role.
Gaston has no right still being in the competition. He has yet to sing an entire song without going out of tune. Gaston was saved twice by the fans and it’s fairly safe to say it was because of his looks. He was lucky last week because there were no more eliminations, otherwise he would have been in the bottom two again. The judges picked him as a finalist for Troy, much to everybody’s shock, but I think they did it because they know he won’t win and it will guarantee that either Walter or Fer will be Troy.
Delfi has the best voice of the girls. She looks a little too old to be Gabriella, but I was really hoping she’d get that role. The judges picked her as a finalist for Sharpay, probably because she is the only blonde and it's the role that she obviously wanted. However, this week she did some acting scenes as Sharpay and I have to say her acting abilities leave something to be desired, although she did channel her inner diva when performing her rendition of “Bop to the Top.” Sure beats Ashley Tisdale.
Agus has by far the best personality and acting skills of the girls. One of the best performances was Agus and Fer singing “Don” by Miranda! They have such great chemistry on and off stage that ideally she would play Sharpay to his Ryan. Agus does not have the most consistent voice, but at least she does not have a lot to live up to. The judges haven’t decided which role she is going for, but I kind of worry that she would lose to Delfi because everyone is convinced that she is Sharpay (probably because she is blonde). It wouldn’t be the worst thing if she played Gabriella; she gave a very sweet performance to Fer’s Troy.
The judges seem to love Sofia, but there is nothing special about her. She has a decent voice, but she does not show enough emotion when she sings and seems very stuck up. She might make a good Taylor, but she is going for the role of Gabriella.
Vale also has a decent voice, but she is boring. She always gives the most forgettable performances, plus she would have been in the bottom two last week, so she doesn’t seem to have a good shot. The judges haven’t decided who she is going against, but it hardly matters because she won't beat either Delfi or Sofi, the judges’ darlings.
The judges are one of the main reasons why the show works so well. They give constructive and detailed comments and hopefully the contestants are learning from them. The three female judges—-Soleded Pastorutti (singer), Laura Oliva (dancer/actress), and Andrea Del Boca (actress)—-are too nice. They tend to give everybody high scores, but somehow their comments are detailed enough to make up for it. Andrea is the worst, she pretty much always gives tens. She admitted in one episode that she wanted to be the nice one, but she’s not helping anyone by telling these kids that they are perfect and they don’t need to improve. The best and most under-appreciated judge is Peter “I’m sorry” Macfarlane (opera and musical theatre director), the Simon Cowell of the group. The contestants, judges, and audience members seem to hate him, but he obviously knows his stuff. He has never given anyone a ten because nobody has ever given a perfect performance. He constantly teaches musical terms to host Matias Martin, the family members of the contestants, and anybody else who cares to listen. His biggest pet peeve is singers who go out of tune (and rightly so). He also calls the “professors” out for the songs they choose, such as songs in English for students who clearly cannot pronounce a word of it or the “Grace Kelly” fiasco.
The coaches, Ricky Pashkus (theatrical director), Virginia Modica (vocal coach), Fernando Lopez Rossi (musical director), Veronica Garabello (dancing coach) are always ready to defend their choices, which often results in some pretty intense arguments. A frequent complaint by the judges is the English songs. Many Latin singers do sing in English, but these kids are just starting out. It’s hard enough for them to perform every week without the added difficulty of pronunciation. It would be one thing if every contestant had a song with the same level of difficulty every week, but the song selection seems totally random. Someone will perform a rock song, someone else a ballad, someone will sing in English, another in Spanish, some have to perform a duet, and others solo. The show would have benefited from theme nights to level the playing field, such as duet night, musical night, movie night, maybe even Queen night (they seem to really like picking Queen songs).
It's not perfect, but this is still a really well done television show that I can't get enough of.
You can watch episodes on the Canal 13 website.
The play, directed by Michael Blakemore, officially opens today (although the Playbill still lists the pre-strike opening night, November 29) at the Lyceum Theatre. In 2002, Stanford University English Professor Shelley Fisher Fishkin rediscovered the Twain play and brought it to producer Bob Boyett, who recruited David Ives for the adaptation (Jesse Green wrote a fascinating article on the process from the discovery to the production for the New York Times). 
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