Oh, Disney, how could you!

[Event Update] Due to unforeseen scheduling conflicts, HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL performances at Capitol Theatre will run for one week only, July 29-Aug. 3, 2008. All performances for the week of August 5-10 have been cancelled. The crestfallen should call ArtTix customer service at 355-ARTS (groups and Broadway Across America season ticket holders should call 355-5502).

That leaves just seven shows @ 1,875 seats = 13,125 spaces for High School Musical lovers. Will that do it? My hunch is there weren't enough of us to fill up two weeks' worth of seats, but who knows?

I mean, what does this musical mean to Salt Lakers? How about you East High grads? Does HSM do anything for you?

My daughter graduated from East, two years before Elizabeth Smart and 30-some years after Roseanne Barr dropped out. Truthfully, it was a bit arresting for me, as a proud attendee of parent-teacher nights, to see trailers for the Disney Channel movies (I confess, I haven't seen either of them all the way through) with East's red and white team uniforms and the school's asylum-white walls immortalized for time and all eternity.

But it must be even more disconcerting for alumni to see familiar hallways and gymnasiums that once housed their essences now filled with a frenetically dancing cast whose portrayal of high school is likely far removed from theirs. Odder yet must have been when the East High drama department performed the musical on its own stage last November. Talk about life imitating art imitating life. [Jerre Wroble]