High School Musical Series Creator Tim Federle on Crafting That Ending, the Original Mo

SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for the fourth and final season of “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series,” now streaming on Disney+.

The Wildcats of “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series” have taken their final bow.

The Disney+ extension of the popular movie musical trilogy concluded this week with an eight-episode fourth season that found its cast performing a stage — or rather, basketball court — production of 2008’s “High School Musical 3: Senior Year.” Members of that film’s original cast returned to East High to shoot the fictional “High School Musical 4: The Reunion.”

In the final episodes, the new Wildcats found themselves making big decisions about their post-high-school futures. Gina (Sofia Wylie) segued her surprise casting in “HSM 4” into a starring role in a new adaptation of “Romeo & Juliet” — and cornered the director into filming in New Mexico so she could finish out her senior year at East High. With his and Gina’s relationship now public, Ricky (Bassett) got into college and realized he actually wanted to go. Likewise for Kourtney (Dara Reneé), whose Ivy League dreams were sidelined when she fell in love with Lewis College.

Romance was on the call sheet for pretty much everyone else. Ashlyn (Lester) and Maddox (Saylor Bell Curda) finally kissed after their flirtation began at summer camp; Carlos (Frankie Rodriguez) and Seb (Joe Serafini) reunited to share a long-awaited duet; and Miss Jenn (Kate Reinders) and Mr. Mazzara (Mark St. Cyr) stopped pretending they weren’t into each other.

Then there were the original “High School Musical” cast members Corbin Bleu (Chad), Monique Coleman (Taylor), Lucas Grabeel (Ryan), Bart Johnson (Coach Bolton), Kaycee Stroh (Martha) and Alyson Reed (Ms. Darbus), all of whom popped up throughout the season. Unfortunately, the remaining film alums — Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens and Ashley Tisdale — did not make an appearance.

Neither did Rodrigo’s Nini, who recurred in Season 3 before leaving for California to pursue a singing career, mirroring the actor’s real life.

Having closed the yearbook on the series, Federle spoke to Variety about the practical and emotional reasons he ended the series; the teary final day of filming that culminated in a surprise performance and petty theft (you’ll see what we mean); and whether or not they officially invited the missing “High School Musical” alums to join.

A lot of shows might have taken their stories all the way through graduation, similar to the “High School Musical 3: Senior Year” movie. But this show ends in the middle of senior year. Why now?

It was sort of half practical and half emotional. So the practical side was that this streaming era is a very different era of TV, and I felt like the cast and the crew have put four years of their lives into this show. What I didn’t want to have happen is to start producing Season 4, end on a cliffhanger, the show doesn’t come back and it’s just all sort of a bummer. The emotional side was that the vibes on set were so strong in Season 4. It was such a return to the vibes of Season 1, from the acoustic music to the genuine joy and joking around. We got past the COVID season, we had this summer camp palette-cleansing season. And I felt like maybe the way to go out strong is to go out when everyone loves each other. So I took the cast out midway through the season for dinner and said, “You’re about to get an email with the final script and we’re going to do the table read tomorrow. It is not just the season finale, it is the series finale.” We got to kind of own that together.

Were there any bucket list things you wanted to make sure you did in this final season?

Oh yeah, I wanted Ricky and Gina to end up together, I wanted the cast to sing “Born To Be Brave” one more time and I wanted Carlos and Seb to finally have a duet. I also wanted to tell a meaningful college story, which we did with Kourtney. A bigger bucket list thing was to tie in the original franchise one more time in a big way, which is why we did “High School Musical 4” as a backdrop. And personally, I never directed the series, so I directed the series finale and it was really emotional, after having the training wheels of executive producing the show for three seasons, to finally sit in the director’s chair. It was very cool.

It must have been an enormous challenge to build this season, which is easily your most meta, with both the presence of the original cast and all the ways your cast’s stories line up with the original franchise’s beats.

I think that’s one reason we wrapped up the show, or why I wanted to wrap up the show, because how do you out-meta Season 4? I felt like at a certain point it dips into jumping the shark and being too silly, as opposed to what we have done which is to own the meta aspects while also being somewhat emotionally grounded.

It speaks to the deep bench of talent in your cast that you can have a nearly seven-minute scene where one character goes through and vocalizes their personal connection to every single character in the room. What was it like filming Gina’s big goodbye scene?

That was such an important sequence to me. I wrote it for Sofia and Josh to really be able to say a lot of things to their cast members that were true to their characters and, I had a feeling, them personally. When Dara tears up, it is because she is reacting to what Sofia says in real time. Our camera operators, Jesse (Evans) and Tahlee (Scarpitti), have been with us for years and I just said, “When Gina says their name, find the actor and hold on their reaction.”

I wrote the first draft and it was for Gina to go around the room and say her goodbyes. But Sofia being the best student of life ever, she said to me, “I have a couple of ideas as well, can I add to yours?” I told her to go to town. That super emotional take that we use in the show is really Sofia speaking from the heart and tailoring her messages to the cast, and it was so powerful. The assistant directors set aside hours and hours to do that scene, and we got it in two takes. Once you get the real thing, why do it again?

How much of this ending did you know from Season 1?

I always felt like we would end with some kind of “Born To Be Brave” reprise, which I think is a thesis statement for the series as a metaphor for life and being on stage. It is scary, but you step into the spotlight and become who you were born to be. I also always wanted the kids to go to Denny’s! We were going to Denny’s in the 90s when I was a theater kid. And I didn’t know exactly how it would formulate it in the writing, but I felt like someone would get a giant starring opportunity, someone else would stay home and it’s about how to make that work. When I started to see Gina and Ricky overlap with Troy and Gabriella in “High School Musical 3,” it felt like a natural conclusion.

Did you ever threaten to actually take over a Denny’s location to let them sing one last song at unsuspecting patrons?

That is hysterical and, in my original script, I did want to go into the Denny’s! But we shot a shocking number of songs in those last two episodes alone, so there were some kill-your-darlings moments. One of those was a sing and dance in Denny’s.

There are a lot of returns this season, but Olivia Rodrigo isn’t one of them. Did you consider bringing Nini back after we last saw her heading for California in Season 3?

I felt really confident about that ending and Olivia is so busy with her songwriting career. At this point, we are introducing so many new people, the OG characters and we wanted to bring back other really important characters. I kind of felt like, with only eight episodes, it just becomes cameos as opposed to real stories. The offer was extended to her insomuch as Olivia knowing from me that she can always come back. But it was never really seriously discussed because there were new relationships we had to write for.

The credits roll on the series finale with five minutes left, so keen viewers knew something was coming. What we got is an out-of-character performance of “For Good” from “Wicked.” Why was this the note you wanted to end on?

One reason for this number was to signal to the audience that we really did mean to end this. Out of character is not a cliffhanger. It is like putting, if nothing else, a really firm bookmark in the series. And if they were in character, did Miss Jenn make them come back after Denny’s to sing a song and make her feel better about turning down “Wicked?” No! It just felt like a better message.

But the other part is that the roots of this show is kids singing acoustic songs because they are really talented. It’s Olivia and Julia singing “Wondering,” and it is Josh singing in the pilot. So I wanted to go out on a quiet — but I hope really powerful — grace note to just show how talented they are. No smoke, no mirrors, no drum set. Joe Serafini is really playing the piano, they are harmonizing in real time and we’re going to get it in one take. And we did!

That had to be the last scene you shot, right? You can’t come back from that!

It was the last thing we shot of the entire series. I talked to our producers and assistant directors to say this has to be it. There’s no recovering from this. Once we say goodbye, I can’t ask them to then go play a silly scene. In fact, the last real scene we shot of the series ended up being Monique Coleman and Dara Reneé in the hallway, which was really powerful because it was an OG cast member passing on this advice. It was really unexpected and just how the schedule worked. Then the next day, we woke up, shot “Born To Be Brave” in the limo, did a quick hair and wardrobe change, cried a little and then we sang “For Good.” After that, I handed out crew awards, we had some cake and then the cast started stealing props and costumes from set!

All season, you got to live with this fantasy fourth installment of the original “High School Musical” franchise. We learn Chad and Taylor are married, Troy and Gabriella are in couples therapy, and Ryan and his partner Scott Hoying have twins on the way. Did you have to clear these developments with Disney in case they ever want to actually make a fourth movie?

For the OG actors on set, we definitely had a huddle about it and they were very much in support. But it was also me saying to Lucas Grabbel, “Are you comfortable with Ryan coming out, partnering up and kissing a guy?” He was like, “Oh, my God, my fans have been waiting 15 years for this.”

Your series has always been unapologetically queer, but the original franchise was not. The Ryan character was very much coded as queer, but the series never confirmed it and even tried to backtrack on it. What was it like to pay that off as part of your story?

It was very emotional, and Lucas was very emotional. He had tears in his eyes, and that meant so much to me because I always felt I was kind of borrowing the franchise. They are the ones that put it on the map. The day that Alyson, Bart, Monique, Corbin and Lucas all walked back in the gym, we were setting up cameras and lighting and were ready to go. But I recognized we needed to take a minute because they had welled up with tears. It was really cool, because it was like a reunion for them.

But there is some commentary in there that representational progress can still be slow because someone notes Ryan’s partner never gets a character name in “High School Musical 4.”

I know, he’s just weirdly played by Scott Hoying! In my imagination of “High School Musical 4,” Scott camoes as himself and the gag is that Ryan married Pentatonix’s actual Scott Hoying. But honestly, Ryan is always going to be the star in the relationship. Sharpay trained him well!

Fans were hoping we might see Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens and Ashley Tisdale before the show officially wrapped, but they didn’t show up. Was there ever an attempt to have them appear?

Yes, there was an earnest attempt. At the same time, I don’t know any of the three personally. I had a conversation with Ashley and she was busy launching these big brands. It felt to me like it wasn’t going to be realistic, and the door was left open for them. But there are already so many actors in this show that I kind of felt like, we are going to celebrate Corbin, Monique and Lucas, who are so great in the show, and not go out of our way to try to make something that is probably impossible possible. Look, the takeaway is that someone should make a real “High School Musical 4.”

You built a cast of young performers that now includes a Grammy winner and a Tony nominee among them. What are your parting words for these kids you got to work with?

They taught me how to be their boss by being so open to a first-time TV creator who treated the whole thing like it was a stage production. That was the only way I knew how to talk to actors or the crew. Gina has this line that I wrote in the finale that says, “It’s not about being a star but about making something you love with people you love.” It’s always fun when the show comes out, but the secret is, the most fun is making it. I’ve given them so many books and journals over the years, and I try to mentor them, but my biggest hope for them is to stay grounded, stay humble but also take up a lot of space. It is unfathomable that I got to meet this group of people and I got lucky because I trusted my gut early on and wanted to cast theater kids because theater people are the best people. I worry about them, I celebrate them and they changed my life.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

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Update: 2024-08-07

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