After a short recess following the massive success of the Disney Channel Original Movie High School Musical, the students at East High were at it again for a sequel, High School Musical 2, which aired on this day in 2007. Once again the story follows the lives of the East High Wildcats. What time is it? Summertime! And the kids find themselves at the posh Lava Springs Country Club for new adventures and plenty of singing and dancing—with choreography that paid tribute to the lavish musicals of the past.
Part of the success of the film has to be attributed to Director/Choreographer Kenny Ortega. KayCee Stroh, who played Martha Cox in all three High School Musical films, told us, “Kenny’s a very special director. He will take the little things that we’re doing and he’ll tweak them and make them even better and he’s just very open-minded. It’s fun when we’re rehearsing because Kenny will notice us playing around, like the tap section in ‘Work This Out,’ that was just Corbin and me playing around in rehearsal and Kenny saw it and said, ‘That has to be in the movie!’ Even though it’s just a tiny little snip of Corbin and me tapping together that came completely from us playing around in rehearsal. And that snake thing that we ended up doing in the hallway—that came out of us giving back massages to each other. We were in a big train doing back massages. Kenny saw that and said, ‘Wait a minute here!” KayCee particularly remembers the energy that Kenny brought to the set. “He had a jar, and if we would yawn, we’d have to put a quarter in the jar. He hates when you yawn on the set. You learn not to yawn in High School Musical.” High School Musical went to the top of its class, becoming the single most-watched basic cable telecast, with about 17.24 million viewers.
