A popular high school athlete and an academically gifted girl get roles in the school musical and develop a friendship that threatens East High's social order.
Troy Bolton and Gabriella Montez are two totally different teenagers who meet at a party while singing karaoke on New Year's Eve. The next week, Troy returns to East High, his high school in New Mexico, to find that Gabriella is a new student there. They quickly become close friends and accidentally audition for the school musical. They both get callbacks, infuriating drama queen Sharpay Evans and her sidekick brother Ryan. Then Chad, Troy's best friend and basketball teammate, and Taylor, Gabriella's new friend on the decathlon team, must make Gabriella hate Troy.—ShannonO'Reilly
Troy Bolton and Gabriella Montez come from two different worlds: Troy the Basketball God and Gabriella the Smart, Stunning Geek. They meet on New Year's Eve and instantly click. When they meet again at East High School, they accidentally audition for the school musical. The social cliques they belong to don't approve of this new friendship and try to separate them. At the same time, drama queen Sharpay Evans and her brother Ryan, the co-captains of the Drama department, try in every way to prevent Troy and Gabriella from beating them in the callbacks. Can Troy and Gabriella lead their friends to more open-minded thinking?—Galoosh16
Troy Bolton, the star athlete at a small-town high school, falls for nerdy beauty Gabriella Montez at a holiday karaoke party. When they return to campus, Troy and Gabriella audition for the upcoming school musical. Meanwhile, the jealous Sharpay Evans conspires to squelch their chances. The two must struggle to make it to auditions while also meeting their existing obligations to the basketball team and the academic decathlon.—Jwelch5742
Popular basketball player Troy Bolton and Ms.-Einstein Gabriella Montez meet at a ski resort over winter break and are forced to sing karaoke together on New Year's Eve; afterwards they exchange numbers. When Troy returns to East High in Albuquerque, New Mexico, surprise. Gabriella is a new classmate. They become friends quickly and decide to audition for the Winter Musical together. They get callbacks and arouse the ire of drama queen Sharpay Evans and her brother Ryan. Troy's friend Chad becomes afraid that Troy will become distracted from the basketball championship. Gabriella's friend Taylor will do anything to get her on the Decathlon team. Chad and Taylor decide to film Troy saying Gabriella isn't important after Chad tricks him into saying it. Taylor shows the video to Gabriella, who refuses to do the callbacks with Troy. Meanwhile, Sharpay and Ryan manipulate the callbacks to the same time as the championship game.—highangel
Troy Bolton (Zac Effron) and Gabriella Montez (Vanessa Hudgens) meet at a New Year's Eve party while both teenagers are at a ski lodge during winter break. Troy is the captain of East High School's basketball team, and Gabriella is portrayed as shy and academic. At the party, the two are called upon to sing karaoke together (Start of Something New). They seem to be attracted to each other, and exchange numbers before parting.
Troy returns home to East High School in New Mexico, where he is captain of the basketball team which his father Jack (Bart Johnson) coaches. Jack is really passionate about Troy making a career playing professional basketball. In 2 weeks, the school's basketball team called the "Wildcats" is going to the Championships.By coincidence, Gabriella has just transferred to East High. Gabriella stays with her mother Lisa (Socorro Herrera), whose company transferred her to Albuquerque.
After break, Troy sees Gabriella in his homeroom, and she explains that she just moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico and transferred to East High over break. Troy shows Gabriella around the school, and they pause in front of the sign-up sheet for the winter musical auditions. This alarms Drama Club president Sharpay Evans (Ashley Tisdale), who assumes that Gabriella is interested in auditioning.The Winter musical has pair auditions for the lead roles and solo auditions for the supporting roles. Sharpay and her twin brother Ryan have starred as lead in all of the school's productions. Mr Darbus is the faculty sponsor of the Drama Club.Wanting to eliminate competition, Sharpay investigates the new girl and arranges for the scholastic decathlon captain, Taylor McKessie (Monique Coleman), to find out about Gabriella's past academic achievements, so that Taylor will recruit Gabriella for the team.Gabriella was conscious about not being projected as the freakishly talented girl at her new High School and is surprised that Taylor knew about her academic past. Taylor says that the school team has never made it past the first round of the Decathlon and is counting on Gabriella.
During basketball practice, Troy has trouble focusing because his thoughts are on Gabriella and the idea that he might enjoy singing more (Get'Cha Head In the Game). Troy is conscious about his image in school as a jock, and so outwardly he tries to project that he is all about the game.Jack and Darbus clash over the primacy of the Drama Club vs the basketball team. Since the basketball team is more famous, the principal also assigns priority to Basketball training and practice over all other school activities. Jack tells Troy that college scouts will be at the Championship game, with a chance to land a sports scholarship.
Gabriella and Troy (who has to hide from Chad (his basketball colleague) and Jack to miss basketball practice) both go to the musical auditions where Sharpay and her twin brother Ryan (Lucas Grabeel) perform (What I've Been Looking For) but both are too shy to audition.The auditions are awful and there are really no competitors for Ryan and Sharpay, who are the only pair who have signed up for the lead roles. Kelsi, the composer, offers suggestions to Sharpay to improve her performance in tune with the spirit of the script, but Sharpay dismisses her saying that she has been part of 17 school productions. And this is the first time Kelsi's composition has been selected for something as big.
When Gabriella finally summons the courage to step forward (after everybody has left the theatre), Troy offers to sing with her, but Ms. Darbus tells them that they are too late. After Ms. Darbus apparently leaves, Kelsi Nielsen, the composer of the musical, trips and drops her things. Troy and Gabriella rush to help her. Troy helps Kelsi realize that it is her show and that she does not need to be afraid of Ryan and Sharpay. Troy compares Kelsi to the play-maker in Basketball, the one who makes everybody else look good.Troy and Gabriella sing together as Kelsi plays piano (What I've Been Looking For (Reprise)). Ms. Darbus overhears them and gives them a callback audition.
When the callback list is posted, Sharpay is furious to learn that she has competition for the lead in the musical, and the rest of the Wildcats are shocked that Troy and Gabriella have auditioned for a musical.Other students confess their own secret passions and talents (Stick To The Status Quo), alarming both Taylor and Troy's friend Chad Danforth (Corbin Bleu). Chad blames Troy that the team is coming apart because of Troy's dabbling with singing.Since Gabriella has agreed to join the scholastic decathlon team, both Taylor and Chad want their teammates to focus on their upcoming competitions rather than the musical.Sharpay alleges to Darbus that this is an elaborate conspiracy to ruin the musical. Darbus confronts Jack about putting Troy up to this elaborate prank, as a way of getting even with the Drama Club.
Troy and Gabriella meet and realize that they are both not happy with their current choices. Troy plays Basketball due to Jack and how proud he is of Troy. Gabriella gets stereotyped as a genius as she is good at Mathematics. They both practice every moment they get.Jack finds Troy and Gabriella together and considers her a distraction to Troy's goals in life. Jack says that Troy has not missed practice in 3 years and now with Gabriella in school, Troy is all over the place. Jack says that Troy is a play-maker and not a singer, but Troy believes that he could be both.
To help Troy and Gabriella return to normal, Chad and the basketball team trick Troy into saying that Gabriella is not important while she watches through a Wi-Fi link that the scholastic decathlon team has set up. Gabriella is hurt (When There Was Me And You), she refuses to talk to Troy and decides not to audition for the musical.Realizing their mistake, Chad and Taylor admit their role in sabotaging Troy and Gabriella's relationship. Troy goes to Gabriella's house, and they reconcile, determined to audition for the musical.
Intimidated after overhearing Gabriella and Troy practicing, Sharpay convinces Ms. Darbus to change the callback time to coincide with both the basketball championship and the scholastic decathlon, so that Gabriella and Troy cannot participate. Kelsi overhears the conversation and the basketball team, and the decathlon team work together to come up with a plan. On the day of the competitions, Taylor and Gabriella use the school's computers to cause a series of mishaps that delay the big game and the decathlon. They hack the power in the gym and causing a chemical reaction that forces an evacuation during the decathlon.
With both competitions delayed, Troy and Gabriella rush to the auditorium, and Sharpay and Ryan finish performing their song (Bop To The Top), confident that their plan worked.
Troy and Gabriella then audition (Breaking Free) and Ms. Darbus gives Troy and Gabriella the lead roles, making Sharpay and Ryan understudies. Troy and Gabriella both win their respective competitions, and the film ends when the entire school gathers in the gym to celebrate (We're All In This Together).
