Good News! High School Musical: The Musical: The Series is coming out with a Disney+ holiday special on December 11th. The show’s director Tim Federle wanted to bring the cast back together before the premiere of season 2 because he missed them that much. “I was like, I miss the cast, I could use a little Christmas, let’s make a holiday special,” Federle says in an interview to Entertainment Weekly. The episode is more of an exploration of the actors portraying the characters in the show than it is a continuation of the story. The cast is able to sing Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Year’s songs and talk more about what makes the holidays special for them.
The filming of the show was probably the most work the crew had to put in to make the episode come together. “We had four different crews in four different cities. Sofia Wylie, she was up at four in the morning and she was shooting in the Arizona desert during a heatwave, and I was directing it over a speakerphone attached to a microphone on set,” Federle said. The showrunner also gave a fun fact that portions of the episode that were shot in Los Angeles were shot at The Bachelor house.
The actors were very excited to be all back and shooting for the show. Olivia Rodrigo, Nini in the show, said “Before shooting this, all of us were in quarantine for like five months or something, and so to get to be on a set with these people who you had missed for so long and to finally get to see them in person was just amazing.” Following that Joshua Bassett, who plays Ricky, says “I’m just excited for everyone to get to know the cast a little bit better on a more personal level than maybe they did by watching the show.”
The special also holds a fun sneak peek at the season 2 premiere and a new song from Bassett. “Season 1, so many of the performances by design were extremely acoustic, it was like Josh with a guitar. And I love those performances and we do those in season 2 too but I feel like we’re the only show on television with the word musical in its title twice, and so we wanted to open season 2 with a bang,” Federle says. What’s more, is that the exclusive photos show Nini and Ricky as a couple and what looks like a fun discussion between Ricky and Big Red.
Here are some of the photos from the upcoming holiday special:
The fun addition to the show will be sure to enhance the holiday feeling in quarantine and get everyone excited about the new season as well.
High School Musical: The Musical: The Holiday Special premieres December 11 on Disney+.
Muska Olumi is a Columnist for the Boardwalk Times
