High School Musical Angst, From Audition to Bow

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."

"20/20's" Drama High: The Making of a High School Musical (two hours) airs tonight at 9 on Channel 7.