High School Musical: The Musical: The Series

S1E1 "The Auditions"

by Amanda Ashley

I am a former theater kid. When I say former, I mean, I’m not currently in theater productions...but I can still sing every lyric to Rent, Hamilton and Beetlejuice The Musical. Once a theater kid, always a theater kid. So when Disney Plus on day one offers me a mockumentary based on High School Musical, my inner Sharpay came alive. (Side note: we can all agree that Sharpay Evans is the true hero of the HSM franchise.) With two episodes now released, the series remains a weird little bright spot on this new platform. There’s a lot to unpack about High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. It’s honestly a sheer insanity of a concept, but I can’t help that I love it. The best way to describe it is a mash-up of Glee meets The Office with the exact archetypes. There’s your Rachel and Finn mashed with the Jim/Pam/Roy triangle that forms our core teenagers, and the drama teacher Ms. Jenn is if Michael Scott and Will Schuester incubated a baby. The entire show is based at the real East High where the original HSM was filmed, but this East High has never staged a production of the musical based on the film so Ms. Jenn is here to fix that. Like I said, it’s a lot to unpack. The worst part like all high school set shows is Ms. Jenn. I’m not sure why writers think we want to know about the tragically trying-to-be-hip teachers, but here we are again. Maybe Ms. Jenn’s storyline could be interesting. There are hints at major money problems for her, but they are being treated a sad asides not a point to her character. (Which makes me wonder is Ms. Jenn in the local teacher’s union? I need an answer to this, Disney. Thank you.) She’s incredibly chaotic and constantly reminding her cast that she was a backup dancer in the original movie. It’s exhausting. I fully expect to see her bust out a Fortnite dance move for a TikTok just so we can get a reaction shot of her students rolling their eyes at how weird adults are. The brightest spot are the main three teenagers: Ricky, Nini and EJ. There are lots of side characters, but the love triangle is the focus as of now. All three actors are talented, and I’ve enjoyed the musical performances we’ve seen from them thus far. They feel like real theater and theater-adjacent kids I know. Theater is the closest you can get to joining a weird cult in your teenage years, and the show definitely gets that. There’s even a joke about it in episode 2. Ricky and Nini’s personal lives are also very flushed out for Disney series characters - in a post-Andi Mack world, Disney needs to continue to evolve. Ricky’s parents are clearly on the road to divorce, and Nini’s parents are a very doting lesbian couple. EJ is our new Zac Efron eye candy for Gen Z because everyone needs their sexual awakening to come from a Disney character. It will be interesting to see where the show goes. The series has already scored a season 2 renewal before Disney Plus was available so execs really have faith in the show. The cast is very diverse and not strictly populated by cis-het white characters. They will easily tap into the Tumblr stan crowd much like the original cast did all those years ago. With their massive Descendants trilogy ending, you can tell that Disney is more than ready to make this new crop of actors their new chosen ones with lots of Buzzfeed type interviews already all over YouTube. I will definitely keep tuning in, but I also own a signed copy of Sharpay’s Fabulous Adventure...so we all know I was showing up anyway. We’re all in this together.

High School Musical: The Musical: The Series is now available exclusively on Disney Plus. New episodes are on Fridays.