“We would literally just sing songs for each other,” Hyland tells PEOPLE of being on the set of the Disney movie over 16 years ago
Corbin Bleu and Sarah Hyland go way back!
While speaking to PEOPLE at the 2024 Drama Desk Awards on Monday, June 10, the theater performers revealed that they met on the set of High School Musical 3: Senior Year more than 16 years ago.
Hyland, 33, says at the time she was a teenager who headed to the set to visit a friend who was in the cast. “That’s how I spent my senior year spring break,” Hyland laughs. “I wasn’t like, you know, like trying to like go to Florida and get wild or anything like that.”
“That would be my spring break, too,” Bleu, 35, reassures her.
“But like, my theater kid [thing] is just to be with other theater kids in Salt Lake City and like just sing songs. We would literally just sing songs for each other,” the Modern Family alum adds, noting how everyone sang their audition songs for the movie to one another.
“Again, it was a ton of teenagers in the same hotel and running through the hallways” Bleu says.
“Literally run through the hallways,” Hyland quickly adds. “We profusely apologized to the people who were staying there on their own time that were not a part of High School Musical 3.”
The two performers have had leading roles in the off-Broadway production of the Little Shop of Horrors revival. On May 26, Bleu departed from the production and passed the role of Seymour Krelborn to Andrew Barth Feldman.
Meanwhile, Hyland took over the role of Seymour Krelborn’s love interest, Audrey, alongside Feldman, 22. She assumed the role after Jinkx Monsoon departed with Bleu.
Both Hyland and Bleu spoke of the show’s personal significance with PEOPLE on Monday.
“I have been a fan of the musical since I was a child. I mean, it definitely shaped a lot of my love for music theater,” Bleu shares. “Of course, Alan Menken and Howard Ashman are just pure geniuses.”
“The earworms in the show, it’s such an economical show. It doesn’t have any lulls or any dull moments,” he continues, adding, “To me, it’s just a brilliant mixing of the comedy and sheer horror that we love to watch.”
