High School Musical: The Musical: The Series Season 3 Cast Talk New Musical Numbers That Will “Break The Internet” and Tease Season 4

This summer everything is changing for the Wildcats.

From Frozen casting news to Internet breaking musical numbers, Pop Culture Planet spoke with the cast of High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, including showrunner Tim Federle and actors Frankie Rodriguez and Julia Lester, about what to expect in season 3.

We’re officially in a new environment as the WIldcats move from East High to sleepaway camp. “They think they're just going to have fun, but obviously they're going to get into a lot of trouble. Good trouble and fun trouble and juicy trouble and song-and-dance trouble,” Tim Federle told me. “Sometimes you let your guard down when it's just like two weeks. It's just the summer — and then everything changes.”

Federle explained why they chose Frozen for season 3 and how they cast the musicals each season. “I love Frozen’s themes of sisterhood and non-romantic love. I also felt it would be powerful to see Dara Reneé play Elsa and that that will be inspiring to a generation of young people who are used to seeing Elsa only a certain way. Dara brings her full gorgeous ferocity to the role in a way that I think is a really big pay off in the finale. And then Sofia Wylie!,” said Federle. “This whole cast — Joshua Bassett and Adrian Lyles and these young people — are so authentic because they are the age of our audience in a lot of ways. It’s exciting to see them play this material that you associate with an animated class. It’s chicken and the egg when we choose these things.”

That’s right, Dara Reneé’s Kourtney is leading Frozen in the role of Elsa, with EJ taking on double duty directing and playing Sven, Gina as Anna, Ricky as Kristoff, Carlos as Olaf, Ashlyn in the ensemble, and newcomer Jet as Hans. “It’s very exciting getting to play Olaf. He's such a beloved snowman. So getting to step into those shoes and figure out ways to make it my own and what does it sound like on my voice and what does it feel like in my body and getting to see what we did with our costume is really fun and funny,” said Frankie Rodriguez about the casting choice, revealing what he thinks Carlos’ plan was when trying to change up the cast list at the end of episode 2. “Carlos was trying new things. He wanted to see if something was going to work. It clearly didn’t. I think Carlos sees himself as like a strong, strapping leading man, so I would think he made himself Kristoff and they were like… no.”

Meanwhile, Julia Lester talks about Ashlyn’s journey going from playing Belle in Beauty and the Beast back into the ensemble. “I was definitely super excited for the challenge of taking on this newfound acceptance that she has to find within herself. It took her a while to accept that fact that she was a leading lady and maybe she accepted that a little bit too much. She has to remember who she was before Miss Jen cast her as Belle. She’s definitely put to the test with the news that she’s going to be in the ensemble,” said Lester. “Something that I love is when Gina points out that it’s kind of out of character for her, so she’s got to retrace her steps and remember who she was before she was given the opportunity to be Belle.”

This season features songs from High School Musical, Frozen, and Camp Rock, plus original songs written by some of the young cast. Federle teased some of his favorites. “We're super meta. DCOM just has so many classic songs now that I think the nostalgic audience likes to hear. We try to keep them on theme, so obviously we’re at camp, we might as well sing a couple of Camp Rock 2 songs,” he shared. “Adrian Lyles sings a song that I think is going to break the Internet. Dara Renee sings a new song that she co-wrote that I’m really excited for people to discover. It’s a very personal and beautiful song. Sofia Wylie has a bunch of songs, including some duets, that I think the stans are going to go crazy for.”

“I loved our road trip medley. That was super fun to film. We got to hang out in the backseat of a real car and be driven around the canyon. We really were jamming out and it was really fun. We have a lot of videos of us just losing our minds and laughing because we were like squished together for hours on end. We were like we could never actually do a real road trip together or we would need like a huge car at least. It was a super good time,” shared Lester, with Rodriguez adding: “Yeah, definitely. That’s one of my favorites. ‘It’s On’ is also a good, fun one. I love any of the dance numbers […] and we have a lot of them this season.”

Federle teases what’s next for the Wildcats in an already confirmed season 4. “After a summer that they all thought would be status quo, there’s now no returning to the status quo. It’s very likely we’ll go back to East High for what will end up being the senior year for certain characters,” he revealed. “That’s all I can say, but it’s going to be a big juicy season.”

Rodriguez shared that if he could sing any song in the next season, he’s love to take on "Can I Have This Dance?” from High School Musical 3, while Lester would love to tackle more original songs. “[I love] when we get to introduce new originals to the show, so I’m hoping that there will be more originals in season 4. Maybe lots more like duets and trios and group numbers that are original.”

New episodes of High School Musical: The Musical: The Series season 3 drop Wednesdays on Disney+. See our weekly reviews of the show, below: