While the big focus on Disney+ has been Marvel and Star Wars, one of the best surprises on the streamer has been High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. The fun self-aware mockumentry style musical comedy series just finished its third sun-soaked season this past summer, but production on Season 4 is already underway. However, that’s not the best part as this season will feature a huge High School Musical reunion. Disney has announced that Corbin Bleu, Monique Coleman, Lucas Grabeel, Bart Johnson, Alyson Reed, and Kaycee Stroh are all returning to this musical franchise in Season 4.
The plot synopsis for the upcoming season reads as followed:
After an epic summer at Camp Shallow Lake, the Wildcats return to East High where they prepare a stage production of “High School Musical 3: Senior Year.” But plans are disrupted when Principal Gutierrez announces that Disney has decided to make the long-awaited “High School Musical 4: The Reunion” movie on location at their beloved high school. Corbin Bleu, Monique Coleman, Lucas Grabeel, Bart Johnson, Alyson Reed and Kaycee Stroh will play themselves, resurrecting their “High School Musical” roles as “Chad Danforth,” “Taylor McKessie,” “Ryan Evans,” “Coach Jack Bolton,” “Ms. Darbus” and “Martha Cox,” respectively, and the Wildcats will play featured extras in the movie.
Along with this reunion announcement, Kylie Cantrall, Matthew Sato, Caitlin Reilly, and Vasthy Mompoint have joined the cast for Season 4 in recurring guest star roles. Cantrall is a social media star named Dani, Sato is a sitcom actor named Mack, Reilly is an indie film director named Quinn, and Mompoint is a choreographer named Krystal. Both the reunion and new cast members join the returning ensemble that includes Joshua Bassett (Ricky), Sofia Wylie (Gina), Dara Reneé (Kourtney), Julia Lester (Ashlyn), Frankie Rodriguez (Carlos), Kate Reinders (Miss Jenn), and Liamani Segura (Emmy).
Notably absent from this reunion so far are Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, and Ashley Tisdale who played Troy, Gabriella, and Sharpay respectively in the original film trilogy. However, since they are literally making High School Musical 4 that’s subtitled “The Reunion” in the series itself, it's hard not to wonder if the three main leads from the original trilogy will be involved in Season 4. Despite both Efron and Hudgens' rise in stardom in the last number of years, HSM is what started their rise to fame after all.
While Season 3 was HSMTMTS weakest to date due to the smaller episode count and the rushed approach the creative team took to write Olivia Rodrigo’s Nini out of the series, it was still filled with a ton of great original music, charming character moments, and surprisingly great humor. It took the meta antics established in the first two seasons to the next level. The Camp Shallow Lake production of Frozen being filmed for Disney+ was so delightfully absurd, and Bleu playing a heightened version of himself was one of the best parts of the latest season. It’s great to see that he’ll be returning with Grabeel, who made a cameo in Season 1, and most of the original HSM cast members.
There are so many characters in the series at this point, so hopefully this doesn’t distract from the new-found romance between Ricky and Gina. If Season 3 proved anything, it’s that Bassett can be a leading man in Rodrigo’s absence and his chemistry with Wylie is electric. The pair definitely have the spark that Troy and Gabriella had in the original trilogy.
The writing has been the strongest part of this series in its first three seasons, so it's going to be exciting to see how they balance all these different storylines. There’s a lot of humor that can be mined from HSM 4 taking over the “real” East High as all our favorite characters begin their senior year. The Wildcats will also still be dealing with the potential fallout of their wildly revealing Frozen documentary.
HMSTMTS Season 4 is currently filming in Salt Lake City which means we could probably see this musical series return as early as next summer. While we wait for news on Season 4, you can stream the original High School Musical trilogy along with the first three seasons of High School Musical: The Musical-The Series on Disney+ now. You can also watch the "This is Me" musical sequence from Season 3 down below to hold you over: