At the New York City High School for the Performing Arts, students get specialized training that often leads to success as actors, singers, etc. This movie follows four students from the time when they audition to get into the school, through graduation. They are the brazen Coco Hernandez, shy Doris Finsecker, sensitive gay Montgomery MacNeil, and brash, abrasive Raul Garcia.

otsoNY Comments: The High School of Performing Arts situated at 120 West and 46th Street refused to let the film makers use the school or even photograph the exterior due to the graphical content in the film. So instead the film makers were forced to look for an alternative venue, which turned out to be the disused church on the opposite side of 46th Street. The church doorway was used as the school's main entrance, whereas Haaren High School on 10th Avenue at 59th Street was used for the interior shots.

West 46th Street (btw 6th and 7th Avenues) Manhattan.   The Real High School of Performing Arts The High School of Performing Arts, more formally known as The School of Performing Arts: A Division of the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, informally known as "PA", was a public alternative high school in New York, New York, USA that existed from 1948 through 1984. The school was created in 1947 by educator Franklin J. Keller, using staff and administrators from Metropolitan High School, a vocational school on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Under Keller's stewardship, it offered music and speech programs in addition to the traditional "trade" skills. Occupying a disused 1894 public school building on West 46th Street in Times Square, the new school offered programs in Music, Dance, Drama, and, for a time, Photography.

West 46th Street (btw 6th and 7th Avenue) Manhattan.

Times Square (Broadway, 7th Avenue, West 42nd and 47th Streets) Manhattan.

Central Park West and West 86th Street, Manhattan.

Montgomery's Apartment, 1564 Broadway and West 46th Street, Manhattan.