Directors: Tamra Davis
Writers: Tim Federle (written by), Peter Barsocchini (inspired by the High School Musical movies written by) Zachary Dodes (story editor), Ann Acacia Kim (story editor)
Cast: Olivia Rodrigo, Joshua Bassett, Matt Cornett, Sofia Wylie, Larry Saperstein, Julia Lester, Dara Renee, Frankie A. Rodriguez, Mark St. Cyr, Katie Reinders
‘The Auditions’ Air Date: 19/11/2019
High School Musical: The Musical – The Series currently has two episodes available to stream with a new one available every Friday/
Easily the most confusing name of any of the Disney+ launch shows is High School Musical: The Musical – The Series. Yep. But it’s basically a combination of Glee and The Office for High School Musical fans and if you sound like the target audience for that, the first episode is solid teen drama and songs.
The premise makes it sound like a real documentary, but it’s all fiction. The fictional high school where the High School Musical films were made has a new drama teacher and she’s decided it’s a crying shame that the kids attending the famous school that more-or-less birthed Zac Efron haven’t put on their own musical based on the High School Musical films.
As much as this is a Disney+ program, it still very much feels like a DisneyXD show and the acting matches that rather cheesy teen-drama necessity. Even the teachers played by Kate Reinders and Mark St. Cyr have that very 90/00’s writing about them with personalities that are super focused on being one stereotype. The crazy drama teacher and the teacher who hates the arts.
Ricky (Joshua Bassett) was dating Nini (Olivia Rodrigo) until she dropped the big L-word on him shortly before the school break. He had a whiplash reaction to freak out and asks that they have a break themselves over the month ahead but when he’s returned to school he finds that she’s moved on and taken her broken heart to be mended by EJ (Matt Cornett).
EJ and Nini met at over the break and grew their romance over a love for drama and musicals. Ricky however, always hated musicals. Nini at one point mentions in the episode that Ricky began shouting in the cinema because The Greatest Showman was annoying him so much. Nini and EJ are going to be auditioning for the High School Musical production and hoping to score the two lead roles, obviously, but this opens an opportunity for Ricky. He decides a good way to get Nini back is to win her affection back by auditioning for the production.
