The concept for High School Musical: The Musical: The Series was promising from the jump, but the show has grown way beyond the mega-popular franchise it’s attached to to create its own new generation of musical theater-loving audiences.

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Like High School Musical, the Disney Plus show, too, launched a number of careers including the stratospherically successful Olivia Rodrigo, and her cast mates Joshua Bassett and Sofia Wylie. After four consistently great seasons, the cast has taken their final bows with a special tribute to the original High School Musical movies.

How does High School Musical: The Musical: The Series relate to the High School Musical films?

For the nostalgia surfers who have yet to give HSMTMTS a chance but still feel deeply connected to the musical trilogy from their childhoods, the concept of the show — which first premiered in 2019 — might feel a bit confusing.

In short, just like in our own universe, in the story world of HSMTMTS, the three High School Musical original Disney Channel movies are fictional too. The bridge between the two is the high school in which they’re both set. Rodrigo’s Nini, Bassett’s Ricky, Wylie’s Gina, and the rest of the gang are all students at East High School, the same school and building that served as a set for the High School Musical movies. Their own in-universe drama teacher Miss Jenn — played by Kate Reinders — was supposed to be a background dancer in the films but was ultimately cut.

A clever concept that banks on the associated nostalgia without being a direct sequel to the movies – in the first season the class must put on a school musical inspired by the first High School Musical film, while in the fourth and last, they decide to stage the original musical that the fictional characters in High School Musical 3: Senior Year were also working on within that film. If you think that’s a bit confusing, it’s done on purpose, with the show’s creator Tim Federle calling it “Inception with jazz hands” in an interview with People.

Which High School Musical actors make appearances in High School Musical: The Musical: The Series?

Thanks to this high-concept premise, the opportunities for fun Easter Eggs and cameos are endless. The characters from High School Musical (Troy, Gabriella, Ryan, Sharpay, and more) are entirely fictional in the world of the Disney Plus show, but the actors who play them, however, are very much real. As a result, they show up once in a while playing themselves.

In season 1, KayCee Stroh — who played hip-hop brainiac Martha in the films — makes a fun cameo in the sixth episode as a member of the school board. Lucas Grabeel, the man behind the icon that is Ryan Evans, also stars as himself in the eighth episode of this same season, showing up in Miss Jenn’s dreams and even singing her a song. Corbin Bleu has a recurring role in the third season of the show, as the host of a docuseries that is being done on the East High students’ production of Frozen.

It’s in season 4, however, that the stars come out in full force. The students’ plan to stage High School Musical 3 gets derailed when the cast of the movies comes back to shoot a fictional fourth High School Musical movie called High School Musical 4: The Reunion. Ricky, Gina, Kourtney, and the rest of the gang are all cast as extras for the film and are present during filming. Coming back for these fictional shoots are none other than Monique Coleman, Bart Johnson, and Alyson Reed, joining Stroh, Grabeel, and Bleu. They all play themselves playing their characters (Taylor, Coach Bolton, Ms. Darbus, Martha, Ryan, and Chad, respectively).