PEORIA - Yes, you CAN have it all, neatly packaged and sent blade-running 'round a hockey rink for twice the tween-aged fun.

That's the gist of "Disney's High School Musical: The Ice Tour," headed to the Peoria Civic Center March 27 through 30.

It's a sort of frozen dessert remix of the candy-coated musical that took the tween world by storm two years ago this winter, followed by a sequel, a live theater version and an entire cottage industry.

With "High School Musical 3" due shortly.

A major chunk of the sprawling "High School Musical" phenomenon is present and accounted for in the ice version, which condenses the storylines from the original and the first sequel into a single entity.

Fans get "High School Musical" neatly compacted into Act One, followed, after the intermission, by "High School Musical 2," again, slightly abridged and speeded up.

But not compromised, assures one of its stars, Laura Doty, who essays the role of Kelsi, the musical's author and the show's narrator - not to mention the iced version's only performer with a live speaking role (all the other skating cast members lip-synch their songs and dialogue to a pre-recorded track, which is the rule of thumb for ice shows with a storyline).

"It's actually all the singing and dancing from both movies, plus the two new songs that were written for the Broadway stage show," she promises.

So how does "High School Musical: The Ice Tour" keep from clocking in at "Gone With the Wind" endurance levels?

"The parts that people speak have been condensed," she says. "But we still talk to each other. It's just that each storyline is a teensy bit shorter."

None, repeat, none of the songs or dance numbers has been sacrificed at the altar of brevity, adds Doty, a Denver native who has skated all of her life but has no formal theater training, despite her prominence in the show's only live speaking part.

Though a review published in Variety avers, "trimmed down to a CliffsNotes version of the plot … (it) may be a bit bewildering to anyone who has never encountered the material in any of its previous incarnations," Doty thinks "HSM" novices should be able to maintain their coordinates.

"I get to talk directly to the audience," she adds, meaning Doty is on the show's front lines, actually playing emcee and interacting with the audience, right down to selecting one audience member to name one of the songs for the "High School Musical" score she's authored.

Yes, she says, one lucky "HSM" fan will get to become a part of the interaction - though he or she (most likely a she, laboratory tests have shown) won't be asked to don skates and start performing figure-eights on the spot.

"I won't pick anyone who looks shy or doesn't want to become involved," says Doty, who made that mistake shortly after the ice version left the starting gate late last summer. "I felt horrible because the person was really shy and we scared her a little."

Instead: "I go for the women who are screaming the loudest, or the ones holding the signs - then I know they'll talk back to me."

The producers of the show (the same who brought "Monsters, Inc. on Ice" to Bloomington's U.S. Cellular Coliseum a year ago) are aware that the audience will be packed with parents and grandparents who don't know Sharpay the "HSM" villainess from Shar-Pei the loose-skinned canine breed.

So in her narrator role, Doty gets to help ensure that "they totally understand the whole thing."

The first film charts the angst that results when basketball player Troy and brainy girl Gabriella buck the status quo by auditioning for the annual musical at East High School. This occurs while jealous siblings Sharpay and Ryan try to sabotage the romance before the curtain rises.

In the sequel, the first film's plot is basically rehashed in a different season and setting: summer vacation at a country club, where the East High Wildcats both work and play.

In an unusual marketing maneuver for a Central Illinois venue, tickets for the Peoria Civic Center engagement of "High School Musical: The Ice Tour" went on sale a full year before the performance - in fact, a full three or four months before "High School Musical 2" aired on the Disney Channel.

Was there any concern the "HSM" craze might burn itself out before the show slid into view?

"No one was concerned about it," says Doty. "It's so huge, and the third movie hasn't come out yet."

Though seemingly past the prime demographic target for "HSM," Doty confesses that as a child of the Disney Channel, she and her University of Denver classmates continued to watch the channel's programming.

"We'd get our Slurpies and sit around watching Disney Channel movies," she confesses.

When "HSM" came along during this period, "we thought, holy cow, this is amazing - we've become dorky 'High School Musical' fans."

She estimates she's seen the movie "around 30 times, at least."

Just a year later, following graduation, the lifelong skater learned of auditions for the ice version, tried out and landed her first job in the chorus of "Monsters, Inc. on Ice" near the end of its 2007 tour, followed by landing the role of Kelsi.

Which is a dorky "High School Musical" fan's ultimate dream come true, right?

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At a glance

What: "High School Musical: The Ice Tour"

When: 7 p.m. March 27 through 29, 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. March 29, 1 p.m. March 30

Where: Peoria Civic Center Arena, Peoria

Tickets: $11 to $40

Box office number: (309) 673-3200