From left, McKinley High students Tina Cohen-Chang (Jenna Ushkowitz), Kurt Hummel (Chris Colfer), Artie Abrams (Kevin McHale), Mercedes Jones (Amber Riley) and Rachel Berry (Lea Michele) demonstrate that anyone can be a star in the musical comedy series Glee. (Global)

“Nowadays, being anonymous is worse than being poor,” declares steely-eyed diva-in-training Rachel Berry (Lea Michele) in the pilot episode of the new series Glee. “Fame is the most important thing in our culture now. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that no one’s just gonna hand it to you.”

In the wake of High School Musical, musical theatre is experiencing a full-blown renaissance. But Glee doesn’t trade in the shiny, happy vibe of its peers.

And to borrow a line from Donna Summer, she works hard for it, honey. The tenacious lead singer in her school’s shaky glee club, Rachel posts daily performance clips on MySpace, “just to keep [her] talent alive and growing.” In the first 10 minutes of Glee’s pilot, we see Rachel attack the Les Miserables ballad On My Own — a maudlin audition piece for legions of aspiring ingenues — not once, but twice.

While Rachel insists her MySpace duties leave no time for dating, the hapless sophomore isn’t blind to the cruel comments posted on her page (e.g. “Please get sterilized”) and bullying assaults in high school corridors. Rachel’s drive may seem maniacal, but she uses show tunes to drown out the voices that remind her she’s an outcast.

That, in a nutshell, is the prevailing ethos of Glee, a delightful show from Ryan Murphy (Nip/Tuck) that celebrates over-the-top performance while acknowledging that even at its most Brechtian, musical theatre is escapism. To the freaks and geeks who embrace the medium, musicals provide a haven where complex emotions come out in major-key melodies.

Yet like Rachel, Glee is grounded in reality. At fictional McKinley High, the jocks and queen bees call the shots. The school follows a rigid hierarchy, where, according to one character, the members of the glee club rank below even “the kids playing live-action druids and trolls.”

In keeping with the current economic climate, cutbacks are rampant — at McKinley, arts programming has been slashed while the prize-winning pep squad The Cheerios are spared. Enter Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison), a softie of a Spanish teacher with a weakness for underdogs. We’ve met pedagogues like him before, but “Mr. Shoe” isn’t an outsider who’s come to wrangle a crew of hooligans. A McKinley alum who graduated in the ‘90s, Schuester leads the glee club — which he dubs “New Directions” — hoping to reconnect with the joy he felt back in his own show choir days.

Optimistic Spanish teacher Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison) becomes the musical director of his high school's show choir. (Global)

Mr. Shoe may love the notion of discovering hidden talent, but by and large, the kids in New Directions don’t need a mentor to tell them they’re special. New Directions seems curated for maximum Misfit Diversity appeal: along with Rachel, the show choir includes Kurt (Chris Colfer), an effeminate wisp of a lad with a near-castrato warble; sassy Mercedes (Amber Riley), who belts out Aretha Franklin during her audition; Artie (Kevin McHale), the four-eyed nerd in a wheelchair; stuttering pseudo-goth Tina (Jenna Ushkowitz); and the token heartthrob, Finn (Cory Monteith), a slightly dimwitted quarterback who joins their motley crew under curious circumstances. John Hughes would be proud.

For all its empathy, Glee doesn’t hold its outsiders beyond reproach. Rachel, for example, often comes across as psychotic in her pursuit of fame. “You might laugh because every time I sign my name, I put a gold star beside it,” she says, after signing up for an audition, “but it’s a metaphor, and metaphors are important. My gold stars are a metaphor for me being a star.” Then there’s Kurt, whose fashion fixation and preening demeanour don’t do him any favours when he’s menaced by meatheads. Bullying in all forms is reprehensible, but we still wince at the lack of social skills Murphy’s characters exhibit.

If we’ve learned anything from the popularity of So You Think You Can Dance and American Idol, it’s that we love seeing diamonds in the rough transformed into polished superstars. Glee, which features ambitiously staged performances of well-known pop songs, is right in keeping with that approach.

Ryan Murphy is conscious of our desire to participate in the celebrity-making process. Along with hooking his narrative on that impulse, the writer/creator cast actors who aren’t familiar to television viewers. In allowing audiences to get to know new faces, Murphy hopes to produce what he described in an L.A. Times article as “those Susan Boyle moments” — that charge you get out of seeing a stranger accomplish something great. The Glee club may include folks from Broadway (Morrison was in Hairspray; Michele starred in Spring Awakening) and seasoned character actor Jane Lynch (hilarious as a protein shake-swilling cheerleading coach), but the rest of the cast is mostly unknowns.

Cheerleader Quinn Fabray (Dianna Agron) is the head of McKinley High's chastity club in Glee. (Global)

In the wake of High School Musical, musical theatre is experiencing a full-blown renaissance, at least amongst tweens. But Glee doesn’t trade in the shiny, happy vibe of its peers. The combination of gentle camp and tart wit conjures memories of Murphy’s much-loved (but short-lived) high-school series Popular. Caustic lines are standard. "You think that's tough?" Lynch barks at her Cheerios in one scene, "try living with hepatitis!" In Glee, characters deliver saccharine aphorisms (“By its very definition, glee is about opening yourself up to joy!”) with the awareness that they’re clichés but the secret hope that the affirmations contain a nugget of truth.

Unlike the High School Musical franchise, which depicts a surreal alternate reality where characters burst into song, Glee is hyper-self-conscious, not only of the ersatz universe of musicals, but that it is itself an escapist outlet. The show has already received an overwhelmingly positive response: after one preview broadcast of the pilot back in May, Glee fan communities have sprung up online. The pilot airs again Sept. 2, with the season premiere hitting airwaves Sept. 9.

The devotion Glee has already inspired speaks to a need for a particular brand of entertainment in dark economic times. What’s great about Glee, however, is the way it balances a keen awareness of the uncertainty (and occasional crappiness) of real life with an earnest desire to cultivate even the smallest moments of joy.

The Glee pilot will be re-broadcast Sept. 2 on Fox. The new season begins Sept. 9.

Sarah Liss writes about the arts for CBCNews.ca.