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High School Musical-Live on Stage, the theater adaptation of Disney's phenomenal hit movie, is coming to Beijing with a weeklong show.

With three weeks of sold out performances in Shanghai in the summer of 2009, the musical will have the same production but a new cast.

"We have brought together actors from New York, London and South Africa for the current lineup, which will be the major difference from the production seen in Shanghai," says director Paul Warwick Griffin.

It took nearly seven months to complete the casting process, and nearly 500 young actors were auditioned, Griffin says.

High School Musical-Live on Stage looks more like a pop concert than a traditional musical. All of the props and wardrobe have been specially designed for each of the characters, including Sharpay, who boasts a specially designed pink school locker and even a tailor-made pink motorbike, the director says.

The stage version of High School Musical is similar to the movie, Griffin adds.

The modern day Romeo and Juliet - with a happy ending - began as a humble made-for-television movie on the Disney Channel in 2006.

According to Disney, more than 255 million viewers have seen the original film, and the soundtrack was the No 1 selling album of 2006. Based on the smash-hit Disney Channel Original Movie, the theater adaptation has captivated a legion of young fans since it premiered in Chicago in August 2007, featuring all the characters and chart-topping songs from the movie.

The story is universal and transcends language and cultural barriers. The primary target audience is youthful, but the director says "the story of overcoming adversity to achieve your dream is a story that all ages have been able to relate to."

"It's the notion of saying to people: Follow your dreams and be great enough to follow those dreams. It appeals to people all over the world."

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（中国日报网英语点津 Helen 编辑）

About the broadcaster:

Nelly Min is an editor at China Daily with more than 10 years of experience as a newspaper editor and photographer. She has worked at major newspapers in the U.S., including the Los Angeles Times and the Detroit Free Press. She is also fluent in Korean.