The spring musical cast list has officially been posted.
This week's new episode of High School Musical: The Musical: The Series revealed who will be playing who in the East High production of Beauty and the Beast, and there were some surprises to be found, both good and...weird.
In good news, Ashlyn (Julia Lester) was cast as Belle, giving both the character and the actress the due her talent deserves. Ricky (Joshua Bassett) will play the Beast, as expected, but we can't exactly say he deserves the role. He essentially bombed his audition and still got a lead part, which is pretty typical of boys in high school theatre so we guess we're not that surprised.
In weirder news, EJ (Matt Cornett) will play Gaston, the character who's madly in love with Belle, who is being played by EJ's cousin. EJ is the perfect Gaston and Ashlyn will slay as Belle so it's not like any incorrect choices were made here, but still, it's weird!
Here's the full cast list, as far as we know so far:
Belle: Ashlyn
The Beast: Ricky
Gaston: EJ
Mrs. Potts: Kourtney (Dara Renee)
Chip: Seb (Joe Serafini)
Lumiere: Carlos (Frankie Rodriguez)
Babette: Gina (Sofia Wylie)
Le Fou: Big Red (Larry Saperstein)
And none for Lily (Olivia Rose Keegan), the mean new girl, who dared to make fun of people during the auditions. Sure, she's got a perfect voice and looks—as the other girls point out—like an actual Disney princess, but she's far too rude to fit in with the theatre department at East High.
However, she's probably a perfect fit for North High. As the other kids celebrated their new roles, Lily watched from outside the pizza place and placed a call to the North High drama department, and something tells us we haven't seen the last of her yet.
Elsewhere, in Denver, Nini (Olivia Rodrigo) is not having the best time at boarding school. She tried to be creative with an assignment and it didn't go well, and then she got put on vocal rest. She seems pretty lonely, and unless things start looking up for her, it feels like she'll be back from YAC before we know it.
Meanwhile, we've got songs from Beauty and the Beast stuck in our head, and we're already waiting on next Friday to get here already. Curse you, Disney+! We just want to binge!