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**WDB News** · #1 (**permalink**) 05-16-2008, 08:02 PM

Lead characters Gabriella Montez (Arielle Jacobs) and Troy Bolton (John Jeffrey Martin) perform "Breaking Free" in the touring Disney production.

You'd have to be 'crazy' to adapt Disney's 'High School Musical' for the stage

Over the past two decades, David Simpatico, 47, has established a reputation for doing what he calls "off color" and "twisted shows." He was a writer/performance artist/singer specializing in edgy, dark, adult-themed work. And then three years ago he was recruited by Disney Productions to adapt "Alice in Wonderland."

"I was pretty surprised," he noted. "I remember (Disney executive) Rick Elice sat me down and said, 'Don't write what you think we want because we're Disney. Write what you want to write. We hired you because you're crazy.' "

"Alice" was certainly no "Beauty and the Beast" or "The Lion King." It was devised by Disney as something that could be licensed for performance by young actors. The company, however, liked what Simpatico did with "Alice." His next assignment was a stage version of "Disney's High School Musical," a touring production of which opens at the Paramount Theatre on Tuesday.

"HSM," which debuted as a 2006 Disney Channel movie, has been a staggeringly successful venture. The box-office bonanza has included CDs, DVDs, a novel, an ice show, an arena concert version, two sequels and a video game.

"I was considered one of the most uncommercial playwrights in the city," Simpatico said, "and suddenly I was writing the most commercial property in the world. You have to laugh at the irony."

The "HSM" scenario is built on familiar lines. There's the boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-gets-girl plot. The characters follow the Romeo-and-Juliet dynamic, complete with hostile teen cliques. Only this Romeo and Juliet -- Troy and Gabriela -- are blessed with a happy ending. And the cliques -- brainy kids, artsy kids, skateboard kids and athletic kids -- stop short of bloodshed when acting out their hostilities. By getting together to put on a show, the kids at East High School find love, friendship and fun.

In an e-mail interview earlier this week, Simpatico speculated about the appeal (for himself and for the public) of "HSM."

"I have always liked 'backstage' musicals," he wrote. "I'm a real sucker for them, from '42nd Street' to 'Gypsy.' When I watched the 'HSM' movie I remember thinking, 'This is so sweet,' and, yeah, I will admit, I did cry a bit."

Last September Seattle Children's Theatre staged a successful production of "HSM." While teenagers are definitely not the musical theater's target demographic, "HSM" pulls in adolescent audiences. It has the advantage of young protagonists. And the songs, Simpatico points out, "have a good beat, and you could dance to them."
Simpatico was a theater junkie long before he got to high school.

"In 1970, when I was 10, I was cast in the lead of 'Macbeth,' " he recalled. "I got to do sword fights and wear a tunic!"

Now Simpatico lives in the highly gentrified but still vaguely artsy Greenwich Village section of Manhattan. He shares an apartment with his "husband of over 20 years, Robert C. Strickstein." Strickstein is a theatrical producer whose main occupation of late has been running Noiseball, which handles Simpatico's multifaceted creative work.

Simpatico, the name, comes from the Campobasso region of Italy. One of David Simpatico's current projects is an opera based on family history. Titled "First Kiss," it focuses, he explains, "on my grandfather and grandmother, a boxer and a flapper in Hell's Kitchen at the start of the previous century."

Left to his own devices, Simpatico would be working on "Glen or Glenda," which he describes as "a campy, dirty take on Broadway," or "Say Uncle," a "TV pilot about a gay couple who must parent their recently orphaned right-wing born-again nephew." Or, better yet, a musical comedy version of the Hollywood horror story "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?"

"It would star Meryl Streep and Glenn Close," Simpatico said, "and I'd have them switch roles back and forth. I think that would be so much fun!"

DISNEY'S HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL
CREATORS: Book by David Simpatico, based on the film script by Peter Barsocchini. Songs by a dozen writers.

WHERE: Paramount Theatre, 911 Pine St.

WHEN: Opens Tuesday, runs through May 25

TICKETS: $20-$67; 206-292-2787 or broadwayacrossamerica.com