The crop of budding thespians in Disneys High School Musical is finally welcoming an openly gay teen into the mix.

On Tuesday, the pilot episode of High School Musical: The Musical: The Series became available to subscribers on Disney+ , the hotly anticipated streaming network.

Written by Tim Federle , the 10-episode reboot puts a mockumentary spin on the smash 2006 film , which spawned two sequels and catapulted Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens to stardom. This time, the focus is on a group of students at the Salt Lake City high school where the original High School Musical was filmed. Theyre staging a production of ... High School Musical.

The student choreographer of the musical-within-the-musical series is Carlos, played by Frankie A. Rodriguez . Like his character, Rodriguez is gay and Latinx, and sees his casting in the new series as a reflection of his own adolescent experience in many ways.