Tween Dream.(The Talk of the Town)(High School Musical)

At 6 A.M. one recent Thursday, a barista at a Times Square Starbucks was puzzled to see dozens of teen-age girls streaming past the window, many of them carrying homemade signs. They had come, a customer explained, to see the cast of "High School Musical" perform on "Good Morning America." The blue-eyed boy whose face was pasted on the placards was the film's nineteen-year-old star, Zac Efron. "He's been in what, one movie?" said the Starbucks guy. "People fall in love quickly around here."

As anyone who has been within shrieking distance of a sixth grader during the past year knows, "High School Musical" is more than a movie. It's a crucial way station on the developmental road between "Powerpuff Girls" and "Mean Girls." The original Disney Channel film, about a basketball player (Efron) and a math nerd (Vanessa Hudgens) who defy the social contract and audition for the school musical, has spawned a concert tour, the best-selling album of 2006, an untold number of Facebook tribute pages, and a sequel, which premieres this week.

Outside the "G.M.A." studio, two lines snaked around the block: one for ticket holders, one for standbys. About seventy people into the standby line was a group of sixteen-year-old girls from Ramsey, New Jersey, each holding a sign: Sam Campbell ("WE LOVE YOU ZAC"), Katherine Wilson ("WE LOVE YOU CORBIN"), Megan Naude ("ZAC ATTACK"), Regina Guinto ("PLS HUG ME IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!"), and Lauren McCarthy ("HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL ITS LIKE A RAINBOW IN MY EYES SO NICE I LIKE IT"). "We had, like, seven cups of coffee, and Red Bull," Katherine, who was wearing a tank top and plaid shorts and was shaking uncontrollably, said. "We stayed up all night. I'm not lying. None of us slept."

"We took a limo," Lauren said.

"For her birthday," Katherine said, jerking her head toward Regina. "We didn't sleep all night. Did I say that?"

Katherine explained that her dream encounter with the cast would be at Taco Bell. ("With all my friends there. I'd buy them all tacos.") Nonetheless, Regina, whose mother had dropped the girls off in Times Square at 4 A.M., was acknowledged by the others to be the biggest Zac Efron fan.

"He grew up in California. He has a younger brother named Dylan. He's a Libra. He's dating Vanessa Hudgens. He's in 'Hairspray.' His first big thing was 'Summerland.' He had a gap in his teeth, but he got that ...