The show is set at the high school where the original High School Musical movies were filmed and follows members of the drama club as they attempt to put on a production of High School Musical: The Musical. Basically, the show imagines a world where High School Musical was an actual movie shot at East High where the TV show's characters attend school.
According to the teaser trailer released today, the fourth and final season of the popular Disney+ show is going even more meta as the students of East High return for their senior year only to find out that the long-awaited High School Musical 4: The Reunion movie is being filmed on location at their school and they’ll be used as extras.
While the series may be based on the beloved movie trilogy, it has pushed LGBTQ+ representation in ways the films never attempted. The OG movies included characters that fans read as being queer, but it wasn’t until the show came along that we got our first real gay storyline. Jojo Siwa even appeared on the show to play a queer character.
Characters Carlos and Seb were the first to have a queer love story on the show and both Frankie Rodriguez and Joe Serafini are reprising their roles!
The new season premiers on Aug. 9 and will see the return of Joshua Bassett (Ricky), Sofia Wylie (Gina), Dara Reneé (Kourtney), Julia Lester (Ashlyn), Kate Reinders (Miss Jenn), and Liamani Segura (Emmy).
There are also a few newcomers to the High School Musical family. Kylie Cantrall, Matthew Sato, Caitlin Reilly, and Vasthy Mompoint will all be joining the cast, but no information about their roles on the show has been announced yet.
Some former cast members of the original movies will also make appearances on the final season of the show, including Monique Coleman who played Vanessa Hudgens’ brainy best friend.
Coleman will play her original character who is returning for the filming of High School Musical 4: The Reunion.
"It's really like a movie within a movie," Coleman told E! News. "It's a show within a show, within a show. And so we're playing ourselves and our character. I'm playing myself—a heightened version of myself—as well as coming back as Taylor."
Season four of High School Musical: The Musical: The Series will premiere on Aug. 9 on Disney+.
Ariel Messman-Rucker is an Oakland-born journalist who now calls the Pacific Northwest her home. When she’s not writing about politics and queer pop culture, she can be found reading, hiking, or talking about horror movies with the Zombie Grrlz Horror Podcast Network.
Ariel Messman-Rucker is an Oakland-born journalist who now calls the Pacific Northwest her home. When she’s not writing about politics and queer pop culture, she can be found reading, hiking, or talking about horror movies with the Zombie Grrlz Horror Podcast Network.
