Life and career

Early life and career beginnings

Grabeel was born in Springfield, Missouri on November 23, 1984, the son of Jean (née Harman) and Stephen Grabeel. Before transferring to and graduating from Kickapoo High School in Springfield in 2003, he attended Logan-Rogersville Elementary, Middle and High School. He also played drums for a local church and initiated a men's a cappella singing group at a high school. At school, he found passions in the guitar and the accordion while also enjoying dance. He can dance in the styles of jazz, ballet, hip-hop and tap. While in Rogersville, Missouri, he regularly attended Harmony Baptist Church, where he was a part of the children's and youth groups. During the summer of 2002, He attended the Missouri Fine Arts Academy (MFAA) at Missouri State University. In a letter written to protest eliminating MFAA, Grabeel stated, "I wouldn't be where I am at if it weren't for my time at MFAA." His time there, as he refers to it, is what led him to move to LA and pursue an acting career.

Following his graduation, Grabeel moved to Los Angeles to become an actor. After two months living there, Grabeel landed his first television role in a commercial for toothpaste and then eventually went to star in other commercials for Lego and Hot Wheels. Soon after, he starred in his first film role as Ethan Dolloway in the third installment of the Halloweentown series Halloweentown High. He subsequently reprised this role in the series' fourth installment Return to Halloweentown.

High School Musical

In 2006, he was cast in the role of Ryan Evans, the fraternal twin brother of Sharpay Evans (played by Ashley Tisdale), in the Emmy Award-winning made-for-television Disney movie High School Musical. He reprises his role in the television sequels High School Musical 2 and High School Musical 3: Senior Year. In 2007, he joined co-stars Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale, Corbin Bleu and Monique Coleman on the 51-date High School Musical: The Concert. In early 2009, Billboard believed that Grabeel and Tisdale's track "I Want It All" should be nominated for an Oscar in the Best Original Song category however, the song did not make the final shortlist. During his time in High School Musical, Grabeel (along with his co-stars) had a total of six tracks chart in the Billboard Hot 100. Furthermore, he was the first artist to debut in the Billboard Hot 100 with two simultaneous new entries in one week. While with Disney Channel, Grabeel also participated in the first ever Disney Channel Games and co-captained the green team along with Ashley Tisdale, Mitchel Musso, Miley Cyrus, Emily Osment and Kyle Massey. A year later, he returned to repeat his captaincy of the green team with Dylan Sprouse, Miley Cyrus, Monique Coleman and Brandon Baker.

Subsequent acting career

Grabeel has made television guest appearances in TV series such as Boston Legal, 'Til Death, Veronica Mars and Smallville, where he portrayed a young Lex Luthor in 2006 and reprised the role as a clone of Lex Luthor in the series' 10th season In 2011. In 2007, he filmed the movie, The Adventures of Food Boy with Brittany Curran, as the lead Ezra. Other film projects Grabeel was involved with include the animated film, At Jesus' Side, where he voiced a dog named Jericho. He also filmed the independent film, Alice Upside Down, as the character of Lester McKinley, based on the "Alice book series" by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. In 2008, he also appeared in the movie Milk, a biopic about the slain gay rights activist Harvey Milk. Grabeel played a friend and supporter of Milk, photographer Danny Nicoletta. He also appeared in the 2008 Walt Disney Pictures film College Road Trip as Scooter, which features other Disney stars Raven-Symoné, Brenda Song and Margo Harshman. He also stars in the independent movie Lock and Roll Forever alongside Ore Ska Band. Grabeel also guest starred in an episode of The Cleveland Show.

Early in 2009, Grabeel was voted Most Likely to Do Big Things in 2009 by MTV and had an exclusive interview with them. He mentions the release of another music video for his track Get Your Ass On. He also mentioned his latest movie project, The Legend of the Dancing Ninja, where he played the lead Tokyo Jones alongside David Hasselhoff. In May 2009 he portrayed the role on stage of Matt in the Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones musical, The Fantasticks with Eric McCormack and Harry Groener at UCLA's Freud Playhouse.

Since the summer of 2011, Grabeel has been starring in the ABC Family drama Switched at Birth, in which he plays the brother of one of the two girls that were mistakenly switched at birth in the hospital.

In March 2012 I Kissed A Vampire was released in the U.S. where Lucas stars alongside Drew Seeley and Adrian Slade.

In January 2014 he provided his first-ever voice over role for an animated series, Deputy Peck on Sheriff Callie's Wild West.

Musical projects

Aside his involvement in the High School Musical soundtracks, Grabeel has recorded a song called "You Know I Will" for the soundtrack of The Fox and the Hound 2 and also recorded his own version of the Michael Bolton track "Go the Distance", from Disney's Hercules, for DisneyMania 5. In 2007, Grabeel co-wrote and recorded a song called "You Got It" which was released on iTunes on August 19, 2007 while its accompanying music video was released on his official website. Grabeel also recorded another original song called "Trash Talkin'" which was released November 15, 2008 on YouTube. Grabeel also sings in the iTunes show I Kissed a Vampire, in which, he stars. In early 2009, he appeared at the Southland Theatre Artists Goodwill Event (S.T.A.G.E.), an AIDS charity event, in Beverly Hills performing George and Ira Gershwin's "I Can't Be Bothered Now". He also recorded and released a new track titled '135n8' in early 2014 with the music video being uploaded to his YouTube account.

14341 Productions

In 2007, Grabeel founded a production company called 14341 Productions. His role within involves overseeing many projects from writing, directing and executive producing. The company have produced projects such as the short films The Real Son, Smoke Break; the music videos for "Get Your Ass On" and "You Got It". They also produced a TV pilot called Regarding Beauregard which was Grabeel's directorial debut. They are currently working on a short film, The Adventures of Chuckle Boy, and have just released a short film The Dragon. They debuted their work at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2004	Halloweentown High	Ethan Dalloway	Disney Channel Original Movie
2005	Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth	Charlie/Gertrude/Ophelia
2006	Return to Halloweentown	Ethan Dalloway	Main Role, Disney Channel Original Movie
	High School Musical	Ryan Evans	Main Role, Disney Channel Original Movie
2007	High School Musical 2	Ryan Evans	Main Role, Disney Channel Original Movie
	Alice Upside Down	Lester McKinley	Main Role
2008	Milk	Danny Nicoletta
	High School Musical 3: Senior Year	Ryan Evans	Main Role
	Lock and Roll Forever	Donni
	At Jesus' Side	Jericho	Main Role
	The Adventures of Food Boy	Ezra Chase	Main Role
	College Road Trip	Scooter
	The Real Son	Freddie Deasnman	Main Role
2010	The Legend of the Dancing Ninja	Nikki	Main Role
2011	Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure	Ryan Evans	Cameo Role, Disney Channel Original Movie
2012	I Kissed a Vampire	Dylan Knight
2014	Dragon Nest: Warrior's Dawn	Gerrant (voice)

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2005	Boston Legal	Jason Matheny	Episode: The Ass Fat Jungle
2006	'Til Death	Pete Pratt	Episode: Pilot
	Smallville	Young Lex Luthor	Season 6; episode 5 "Reunion"
2005-2006	Veronica Mars	Kelly Kuzzio/Wanna Score Boy	2 episodes
2009	Glenn Martin DDS	Singer (voice)	Episode: Deck the Malls
2010	The Cleveland Show	Nerd #2 (voice)	Episode: Love Rollercoaster
	Family Guy	Anthony (voice)	Episode: Go, Stewie, Go
	CSI: Crime Scene Investigation	Guillermo Seidel	Season 10; episode 18 "Field Mice"
2011	Smallville	Alexander Luthor/Conner Kent/Superboy/Kon-El	Season 10; episode 13 "Beacon", episode 16 "Scion"
2011-present	Switched at Birth	Toby Kennish	Main Role
2012	Family Guy	Seymour Krelborn (voice)	Episode: Brian's Play
	Robot Chicken	Justin Bieber (voice)	Episode: Robot Chicken's ATM Christmas Special
2013-2015	DreamWorks Dragons	Gustav (voice)	5 episodes
2013	Pound Puppies	Percy (voice)	Episode: "Cuddle Up Buttercup"
2014-present	Sheriff Callie's Wild West	Deputy Peck (voice)
	My Picturesque Body	Randy
2014	Chopped	Himself	Episode: Chopped Tournament of Stars: Actors
2015	Doraemon	Big G (singing voice)	Episode: Big G's Big Show
	Family Guy	Amusement Park Manager	Episode: Guy, Robot
2016 TBA	Pinky Malinky	Pinky Malinky (voice)	Main Role

Other

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2009-present	I Kissed a Vampire	Dylan	Web series

Discography

For his work with the High School Musical film series, see High School Musical discography.

Extended play

Title	Album details
Sunshine	Released: June 22, 2011 Formats: CD, digital download Label: Road Dawg

Singles

Year	Title
2007	"You Got It"
2014	"135n8"

Other appearances

Year	Title	Album
2006	"You Know I Will"	The Fox and the Hound 2
2007	"Go the Distance"	DisneyMania 5
	"Jenny Got a Fever"	Alice Upside Down
	"Gotta Rock"
	"Let It Snow"	Disney Channel Holiday
2011	"Baby"	Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure
2012	"Outta My Head"	I Kissed a Vampire
	"Just a Little Peck"
	"Happily Afterlife"

Awards

Awards
Year	Result	Award	Category	Nominated Work
2011	Nominated	Teen Choice Awards	Choice Summer TV Star: Male	Switched at Birth
2013	Nominated		Choice TV Actor: Drama
2014	Nominated

[ Source: Wikipedia ]