Monday, December 15, 2008; Page C02
It's easy to get into hot water doing a high school musical. Choosing "The Wiz" for a largely white student body is a textbook example.
Drama teacher Scott Pafumi dared to do that last year at Westfield High School in Chantilly, and everything from auditions to opening will air tonight on ABC in the two-hour "20/20" special, "Drama High: The Making of a High School Musical." 
"I know most of you are a bunch of white guys from Northern Virginia," Pafumi tells the kids before auditions. "So am I. But that doesn't mean I can't celebrate the style of the show."
The choice of this version of "The Wizard of Oz" -- a pop-soul-blues adaptation that starred Michael Jackson and Diana Ross when the Broadway show went Hollywood -- ruffled feathers, especially among the theater clique of white seniors disappointed to have a bit of expected limelight shifted toward the influx of minority students. But Pafumi says he wants to "break down walls," and that kicks up a bit of dust.
Not that "Drama High" is two hours of racial tension -- far from it. It's both surprising and reassuring how much of what the cameras catch is routine theater angst, from the pressure of auditions to the tears at not getting cast.
"I'm a poppy!" gushes a girl who's just glad to get a role. The young performers, who are all treated sympathetically in this piece, are incredibly self-aware; they know their own strengths and weaknesses quite well, the main variables being dramatic confidence and genuine vocal talent.
Or so they think. Race inevitably turns out to be a deciding factor when the leading roles are cast, which naturally goes down hard with the losers. One white student asks why Pafumi wasn't candid about his intentions before auditions, and that one-on-one conversation is one of the more uncomfortable moments in the piece.
Viewers lured by the prospect of eloquence on a thorny subject, though, will be disappointed. The documentary takes a fly-on-the-wall approach, offering no narration and little in the way of pointed questions.
"Drama High" tiptoes to the jagged edge of the issue and lets us watch everyone muddle against it. Mistakes are most definitely made, by students and adults alike: There's a culture clash over music in the dressing room, unnecessary humiliation in rehearsal, and Pafumi says a dumb thing that rankles some of the black girls for a while.
The drama of being a kid and of raising a kid is definitely part of the deal here, and this wouldn't be a proper documentary without the cameras pushing into family kitchens and bedrooms to gaze at private conflicts. Will Mom support the heavyset girl hoping to audition for Dorothy? Is the busy "theater kid" letting his grades slip?
"To talk about why I am overweight on national television is a little embarrassing," one winning young man gently suggests to his mother.
You can't have a high school musical without a happy ending, though, and everything -- or everything that we're shown -- ends in hugs. And what did we learn, people?
"I learned," says one of the enlightened students, in as sage a line as the piece ventures, "that the theater is full of surprises."
I have had musical theater running through my veins since high school ya'll!!! I gotta admit, as soon as I saw the fuller figured chick named Jade auditioning ....the first thing that came to mind was "She would make a GREAT Evillene!!!", her mother thought the same thing and said so...but imagine my surprise when she said she wanted to audition for the role of Dorothy.
And she called it, when questioned about her looks her response was priceless..."The script says that Dorothy has to be a teenager - 14 years old to be exact"....it doesn't say that she has to be skinny.....I thought that was a really interesting point she brought up (hmmmph...if DIANA ROSS can play the role as a 30 year old, GROWN ass teacher....how come they couldn't visualize the lil chubbster as Dorothy?)
My only wish was that she had posed that question to the producers during her audition....AFTER she NAILED her audition.
I was rooting for her but alas, I could tell early on that she didn't have the vocal chops to pull off the role. And you HAVE to be able to sing well to pull off that Dorothy role.
Btw...she ROCKED as Evillene....
I enjoyed the program.
"Look, I'm 40, I'm single, and I work in musical theater - you do the math!
-Nathan Lane
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