Exclusive: Disney Channel Hits the Surf with Teen Beach Musical
Teen Beach Musical
Hang ten! Disney Channel is moving from high school to the seashore for its next song-and-dance extravaganza, Teen Beach Musical. A modern-day take on the classic beach musicals of the 1960s, the new Disney Channel original movie will premiere sometime in 2013.
Teen Beach Musical stars Australian actress Maia Mitchell (Mortified, which aired on Disney Channel Australia) as a surfer girl who is forced by her parents to depart for boarding school and leave her boyfriend Brady (Ross Lynch, from Disney Channel's Austin & Ally) behind.
But she and Brady wind up being transported into his favorite classic 1960s surf movie musical, where they have to figure out how to fit in. As everyone around them starts singing and dancing, and a fight between bikers and surfers break out, the duo attempts to get out of the movie and back to present day.
Just as choreographer Kenny Ortega made a splash as the director of Disney's High School Musical trilogy, another famed movie choreographer, Jeffrey Hornaday, will direct Teen Beach Musical. Hornaday choreographed films including Flashdance, A Chorus Line and Romancing the Stone, as well as Michael Jackson's Disney theme park film Captain EO. Most recently, he directed the Disney Channel TV movie Geek Charming. He was also originally announced as the director of High School Musical 4, but that TV movie has so far remained unproduced.
Teen Beach Musical also stars Garrett Clayton (Shake It Up), Grace Phipps (The Nine Lives of Chloe King), John DeLuca (Wizards of Waverly Place), Chrissie Fit (General Hospital), Kevin Chamberlin (Jessie) and Steve Valentine (I'm In The Band).
Production has already started in Puerto Rico. The movie will feature ten new songs, written in a surf rock, Motown R&B, rockabilly and comedic pop style. Vince Marcello and Mark Landry (Zombie Prom) and Robert Horn (Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure) wrote the movie.
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