Trivia / High School Musical: The Musical: The Series

• Actor Allusion:
  • In during Miss Jenn's fantasy in "The Tech Rehearsal," she remarks that she's "more of an Glinda." Kate Reinders played Glinda in Wicked in Chicago and on Broadway.
  • During "Spring Break" Gina meets a guy at the airport, Jack, who asks if they have met before. Sofia Wylie and Asher Angel, who plays Jack, acted alongside each other for 3 seasons in another disney show, Andi Mack, also filmed in Utah.
• Actor-Inspired Element:
  • Joshua Bassett and Olivia Rodrigo are both songwriters, and so are both of their characters.
  • The character of Gina wasn't written as a dancer until Sofia Wylie was cast to play her.
  • The entire storyline for Carlos and Seb at the Homecoming Dance was inspired by actor Frankie A. Rodriguez auditioning with a performance of "I Wanna Dance with Somebody" by Whitney Houston.
  • Joe Serafini's skills at the piano led to his character of Seb always being shown playing it in rehearsals.
• Actor-Shared Background:
  • Nini is Filipino-American, just like her actress, Olivia Rodrigo. You can tell because Nini's mother and grandmother have Filipino ancestry, and Nini even calls her grandmother "Lola".
  • Ashlyn is confirmed to be Jewish in the third season, and her actress Julia Lester is as well.
• The Danza: All of the dancers are named after the actors that play them (Kayden is played by Kayden, Steph by Steph, etc). In a last-name variant, Carlos Rodriguez is played by Frankie Rodriguez.
• Dawson Casting: A lot of promotional material was devoted to the fact that Olivia Rodrigo (16), Sofia Wylie (15), and Joshua Bassett (18) are all actual teenagers playing teenagers. Which they are. However, they're oddly mum on the rest of the cast, and it turns out for good reason...
  • Matt Cornett was around 20-21 years old playing a high school senior when the series started, and very much looked it. Many reviewers complained that his romantic scenes with Olivia Rodrigo were uncomfortable to watch because of the obvious age difference.
  • Carlos and Seb, both sophomores, are played by 20-year-old Frankie Rodriguez and 19-year-old Joe Serafini when the series started. The other sophomore in the main cast, Ashlyn, is played by 20-year-old Julia Lester.
  • Big Red, a junior, is played by 21-year-old Larry Saperstein. This means the age difference between Saperstein and Lester matches that of their characters, who start a romance at the end of season 1.
• Fake Nationality: Antoine the French Exchange student is played by American Andrew Barth Feldman, who had to use a dialect coach in order to have a convincing (if not comical) accent.
• Irony as She Is Cast: Larry Saperstein, a talented tap dancer, plays a character described as having "two left feet". Subverted in the final scene of the final episode when Big Red is shown to be a skilled tap dancer after all.
• Life Imitates Art: Nini's arc in the second season was about discovering her passion for songwriting over acting and breaking out of her shell - which is exactly what her actress Olivia Rodrigo ended up doing just before that season aired. Ironically the actress' success led to Nini being Demoted to Extra in the third season, as Rodrigo recognized it was a better career move for her to focus on her solo career than remain as part of the ensemble.
• Out of Holiday Episode:
  • The season 1 episode "Thanksgiving" aired on December 20, 2019, almost a full month after the holiday.
  • In season 2, "New Year's Eve" and "Valentine's Day" both aired in May - though since the season was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this may have played a factor.
  • The season 4 episode "Trick or Treat," set on Halloween, was released in early August.
• Production Posse: Creator-producer Tim Federle and star Kate Reinders have known each other for over fifteen years, since appearing together in the 2003 revival of Gypsy (he was a farmhand, she was Dainty June).
• Queer Character, Queer Actor:
  • Even before the show premiered, Frankie Rodriguez revealed in multiple interviews regarding his character Carlos and his planned story arc for season 1 that he, like Carlos, is gay.
  • Joe Serafini, who plays Carlos' love interest Seb, was a bit slower to divulge his own sexuality but eventually confirmed he is bisexual. He also somehow lands a role as the female Sharpay in the musical.
  • Other cast members Lester, Saperstein, and Bassett have also come out as LGBTQ and creator Tim Federle has expressed interest for having their respective characters explore their sexualities in future seasons. As such, season three sees an arc where Ashlyn realizes they're bi over the course of the summer, and Big Red comes out at the last minute as well.
• Real-Life Relative: Kourtney Greene's mother Michelle Greene is played by Dara Renee's real life mother actor Kimberly Brooks (not that one).
• Real Life Writes the Plot: Nini's extended absence during the third season, and her departure at the end, was due to Olivia Rodrigo's music career taking off between production of season two and three. As such she was only available for brief scenes near the start of the season, then some quick scenes in the finale before leaving for good.
• Renewed Before Premiere: Was renewed before the first season premiered, though it was delayed for a year due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. It was also renewed for a fourth season before the third premiered.
• Romance on the Set:
  • Although not officially confirmed, it's an Open Secret that Olivia Rodrigo and Joshua Bassett dated during production of the show's first season, and broke up at some point during the lengthy hiatus between the show's first and second seasons, with this experience inspiring Rodrigo to write her smash-hit "Driver's License", along with several other songs.
  • Frankie Rodriguez and Joe Serafini publicly confirmed shortly before the premiere of season 2 that they, like their characters, are dating.
• Throw It In!:
  • The exchange between Carlos and Miss Jenn about following Zac Efron on Instagram was improvised by Frankie Rodriguez and Kate Reinders.
  • Ricky's Anguished Declaration of Love to Nini was partly improvised by Joshua Bassett after the originally scripted speech (which featured Ricky saying "I don't not love you", a Call-Back to the first episode) was deemed trite and insufficient, and he was invited to spice it up. Bassett incorporated several incidents from his Real Life relationship with Olivia Rodrigo into his character's speech to make her reactions more believable, making it also an(other) example of Actor-Inspired Element.
  • Antoine bumping into E.J. in "The Field Trip" was improvised and only happened in one take (which ended up being used). It's why Matt can be seen corpsing just before the camera pans away from him.
• Troubled Production: The trade papers widely reported a clash between original showrunner Oliver Goldstick and creator-producer Tim Federle during filming of the first season. Goldstick was pushing for the show to have even more mature themes and edgy content than the finished product, while Federle was against this. Disney sided with Federle and Goldstick left the show entirely, resulting in Federle taking over as showrunner for the rest of the season (and going forward).
• What Could Have Been:
  • Joshua Rush auditioned for the role of E.J. Had he landed the part he would have been cast opposite his Andi Mack costar Sofia Wylie, and we would have seen Buffy and Cyrus attending the Homecoming Dance together!
  • Joe Serafini originally auditioned for the role of E.J. Caswell but the role was given to Matt Cornett instead.
  • Saylor Curda originally auditioned for the role of Nini Salazar-Roberts. She was one of the finalist for Nini before the role was given to Olivia Rodrigo. The crew loved Saylor Bell Curda so much they ended up contacting her again to audition for Season 3 for the role of Maddox.
  • Changes in character traits and backstories from outline to screen:
    • Carlos was written as an Indian-American kid named "Vikram", his ethnicity only being changed when Frankie Rodriguez landed the part.
    • E.J. would have been a chronic sufferer of panic attacks; this was dropped for reasons unknown.
    • As noted above, Gina was written not as a dancer but a singer, and was planned to have some renown as a popular covers singer on YouTube. (The "YouTube celebrity" angle was shifted over to Kourtney, if only in her backstory). Her mother was written as a classic Stage Mom who would have repeatedly clashed with her over her failure to win the part of Gabriella. (Some signs of a difficult family life remain in the series as aired, though these are largely dropped mid-season, and the one time we see her mother she's nothing but sympathetic toward and supportive of her daughter.)
    • Kourtney was written as a three-line, one-scene Bit Character, probably equivalent in importance to E.J.'s jock friends in the pilot, but her role was greatly expanded when Dara Renee was cast.
    • Seb was only planned to appear in two or three episodes, and doesn't even have any lines in the pilot. In the end he appeared in 9 out of 10 and was promoted to regular for season 2.
    • Big Red's original bio and casting sides mention him having an unrequited crush on Nini, but this never comes up on the show and instead his love interest is Ashlyn.
  • A minor one, but Dara Renee injured her ankle shortly before the filming of "Truth, Justice, and Songs in our Key" in episode six and therefore was unable to partake in the large dance number. As such, Larry Saperstein (Big Red) learned the choreography at the last minute to sub in while Kourtney stays on the balcony and sings.
  • There was going to be a major competition number in the second season finale that took place at the Menkie Awards ceremony, but after having to break and return during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Tim Federle opted to have a more quiet and personal finale with a smaller cast.
  • Tim Federle chose to end the series with season four, as he wasn't certain they'd be able to get a fifth season. If they did, though, the cast would have performed The Greatest Showman with Ricky playing Phillip Carlyle, Gina as Anne Wheeler, and Jet as P.T. Barnum.
• Write What You Know: In Season 4, it was revealed that Ricky has a 1.8 G.P.A. Tim Federle, the creator of the show, posted on his Instagram story after the season was released and revealed that he had a 1.8 G.P.A. in High School with the hashtag #Write What You Know.